Former Tottenham Hotspur manager Tim Sherwood has praised Pedro Porro’s performances this season under Ange Postecoglou having previously criticised the Spaniard.
Sherwood gave a frank verdict on Porro just a matter of weeks after he joined the North Londoners from Sporting Lisbon in the January transfer window with the 54-year-old slamming Porro’s display in his first Premier League start in the 4-1 defeat at Leicester City.
He told Sky Sports: “I don’t want to keep picking on the kid but he needs to be relieved of his duties at the moment,”
“I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt because it’s his debut but Pedro Porro is so bad it’s unbelievable.
His positioning is disgusting, Barnes and Maddison are destroying him down the left hand side.
“He’s just ran inside him, he hasn’t even seen him, he gets the ball played in and lets him run inside him.”
Sherwood‘s comments sparked a reaction from the Spanish international when he shrugged off the claims in March when he said that Sherwood wouldn’t be the first person “who had to then shut his mouth”.
Porro told The Guardian: “It doesn’t annoy me, exactly,” he said.
“You know, people will have their opinion, they’re going to say you played badly, that you’re no good or whatever. You try not to even notice, but it’s impossible. There’s always someone saying: ‘Did you see this?’
You read what’s said about a player who has been at the club two days – two days – and that hits you because you think: ‘I
“I’m not a machine that goes like this and that’s it, I know everyone, I’m integrated. I really hope he keeps saying bad things about me that will make me stronger.
But it’s true that it made an impression because I had been at a big club for so little time.
Let me loose in a prison and I’ll end up owning the place. But it’s hard: it was only a week, I’d never played a minute at City, never played in England in my life.
It’s a couple of days, I start against Leicester. What do you want? For me to score five and cut out 70 balls?! Anyone can have a bad day. From there, I just keep on: take English classes, get into the group, adapt.
“I don’t know him. I don’t know what had happened for him to speak. People passed it on, saying he had spoken badly about me. But he won’t be the first who then had to shut his mouth.”
Postecoglou’s tactical setup which includes the utilisation of inverted wingers has allowed Porro to push further forward and not be initially focused on defending, as to what was asked of him under former coach Antonio Conte.
Sherwood decided to single out Porro as showing a big improvement this season, he told Sky Sports: “Dare I say it? Pedro Porro has done well.”
Do you know why I wasn’t his number one fan? Because he was playing in a position as a right-back and staying there and just being asked to defend,” Sherwood added. “It’s not what he’s good at.
He’s good at going on the offensive, he gets forward, he gets there at the right time. He’s aggressive and he wins the ball back.”