Pedro Porro outshines attacking team-mates with 85% masterclass in Tottenham v Aston Villa
It is not often a right-back acts as a club’s biggest threat, but that was the case with Pedro Porro as Tottenham lost 2-1 against Aston Villa on Sunday 26 November.
Perhaps if some of Spurs’ attackers had shared the creative load with Porro slightly more effectively on Sunday afternoon, the club wouldn’t have fallen to their third consecutive league defeat.
Ange Postecoglou’s side dominated during the first half at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but sloppiness in the final third cost the hosts as they failed to put the game to bed.
This allowed Pau Torres and Ollie Watkins to cancel out Giovani Lo Celso’s opener as Unai Emery’s side returned to the Midlands with maximum points from their trip to the capital.
Villa were all over the place during the opening 45 minutes and could have been out of the game by the time they returned to their changing room. Instead, they were let off the hook, and Torres’ equaliser on the stroke of half-time would have left the players bemused as to how they were level at the break.
Tottenham’s dominance meant very little in the end and Porro was one of the few players in white who could leave the pitch with few regrets.
Despite having the likes of Brennan Johnson, Dejan Kulusevski, Bryan Gil and top scorer Son Heung-min all on the pitch, it was the Spaniard who gave Emery’s backline the most to think about.
It is no secret that Postecoglou likes his full-backs to be direct and cause problems in the final third, but he most likely doesn’t expect the biggest attacking threat from within the team to come from this position, which is as much a point of credit to Porro as it is a wake-up call for Tottenham’s forward players.
As per Sofascore, the 24-year-old was the highest-rated player on the entire pitch, despite being on the losing side, which demonstrates just how well he played. Defensively he was a mixed bag, making one interception and one tackle, but also being dribbled past twice and only winning two of his six ground duels.
Nonetheless, as mentioned above, it was his attacking output that caught the eye on an otherwise bitterly disappointing afternoon for Tottenham.
Porro amassed an xG of 0.20 as well as an expected assists total of 0.44, completing 85 per cent of his passes with an impressive four of those being key. From those passes, he created two big chances, and although only three of his 10 crosses into the box were accurate, he was giving his opposing full-back plenty to think about down the right.
The former Sporting Lisbon man had one shot on target as well as two that went wide and went extremely close to finding a late equaliser when he saw his low-driven shot towards the bottom left-hand corner bounce back off the post.
In the end, Porro played just one fewer key pass than Kulusevski, Johnson and Gil combined (five), while creating as many big chances as the rest of the Spurs team combined.
While it is of course a positive to see one player within the team performing so well, Porro can’t do it all, and Spurs’ attacking players will need to offer a lot more over the coming weeks if the club are to have any hope of digging themselves out of the hole they currently find themselves in.
In other Tottenham news, pundit Paul Robinson has suggested he would “pay double” for one of the club’s most recent signings.