CRISTIAN ROMERO is back on Atletico Madrid’s radar in the wake of his Tottenham outburst.
The LaLiga giants were keen to sign the World Cup winner last summer, but could not fund a move.
Romero ended up signing a new contract with Spurs and was named skipper by Thomas Frank.
Yet the Argentine has caused under-pressure boss Frank a headache for the second time in a month with a thinly-veiled dig towards the Spurs board on social media.
Now Atletico, who are targeting a new centre-back in the summer, are understood to be ready to pounce again should the Argentine become available at the end of the season.
It is unclear if Tottenham would even entertain that prospect, having only handed Romero a fresh four-year deal believed to be worth more than £200,000 a week in August.
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Romero, 27, made headlines with an Instagram post within an hour of Monday’s transfer deadline in which he branded Spurs’ lack of available players as “disgraceful”.
It was viewed by many fans as another swipe at the Spurs hierarchy over insufficient spending in the transfer market, and was liked by a number of team-mates.
The explosive missive followed a similar one in January following the 3-2 defeat at Bournemouth where he hit out at “other people” – viewed as the Spurs higher-ups – for not speaking publicly, and that when they do, they “tell a few lies”.
The lie comment was later edited out of his post but not before thousands of Tottenham fans had seen and shared it.
Frank and co-sporting director Johan Lange spoke to Romero at the time about that statement but the defender was not fined, nor was he stripped of the captaincy.
Though Frank did hint that he may not be so lenient if it happened again, when answering if Romero could reach a point where his manager draws a line and says ‘no more’.
Frank replied on January 8: “Yes, of course. I’ve done that before with people being late, there was the [Yves] Bissouma situation.
“You talk about having to draw a line. I think, if it’s the exact same situation that they do… You can make a mistake [but] don’t make the same mistake twice.
“So I think I understand why you mention some players, but it’s all different situations and different players.”
Argentina team-mate Julian Alvarez revealed in December how close his pal Romero came to joining Atletico in the summer, before his contract U-turn at Tottenham.
Ex-Manchester City man Alvarez, 26, said: “Yes, I had some conversations with him, but due to some details, it didn’t work out. Hopefully, we can play together someday.”
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