Tottenham Hotspur’s new right wing-back Pedro Porro has been touted as a transformational signing for the north London club.
What’s the latest?
The Lilywhites entered the January transfer window with the hopes of landing Porro to bolster Antonio Conte’s options on the right side.
And that is exactly what they have done although they would have hoped for more straightforward negotiations than what they found themselves tangled in.
Porro’s arrival at Spurs was only announced with a matter of minutes remaining before the 11pm deadline following Sporting CP’s issues with the deal over Sunday/Monday.
However, now he is wearing a Spurs shirt, insider Dean Jones has told Football FanCast that this could be a transformational signing for Conte:
“Clearly, it’s a player that they identified a while ago, and put a lot of effort into signing. So I think that Tottenham fans should really have high expectations for this signing. Yeah, could really transform the way they play.”
Different level
Under Conte, Spurs have had the likes of Matt Doherty and Emerson Royal to choose form at right wing-back and neither have been able to provide much of an attacking threat.
Between the two players, across their combined 136 appearances for the north London club they have only been able to provide a return of five goals and 10 assists.
To put that into context, Ivan Perisic arrived in the summer and has already offered a return of nine assists in his 28 appearances across all competitions for Spurs (via Transefrmarkt).
Conte has also had Djed Spence to select but the Italian has not even offered the youngster a single start since he arrived last summer from the Championship.
But in the 23-year-old, Porro, Conte will be hoping to have a much more attack-minded outlet from right wing-back given the Spaniard has already provided Sporting three goals and 11 assists this season.
With Spence out on loan and Doherty no longer playing for Spurs, in comparison to Emerson, Porro will likely provide Spurs a much bigger threat down the right.
Per 90 minutes, Porro has averaged more than double the amount of shot-creating actions as the Brazilian, Emerson, has this season (via Fbref).
And in addition, Porro has attempted well over double the number of dribbles attempted by Emerson this season.
With a massive clash against Manchester City on the weekend it will be interesting to see if the game comes just too soon for Porro but his time in north London will definitely be an intriguing one to keep an eye on.
