Tottenham Hotspur right-back Emerson Royal missed the game on Saturday against Nottingham Forest after struggling with a knee injury.

Why didn't Emerson Royal play against Forest?

Since the arrival of Pedro Porro in January, the Brazilian right-back has impressed massively for the Lilywhites and has kept ahold of the starting spot for the majority of the games since.

However, he was not included in the game on the weekend as Spurs took all three points against Forest as Porro starting at right wing-back.

Emerson did play 70 minutes on Wednesday night as AC Milan knocked the Londoners out of the Champions League with their 1-0 aggregate victory.

And speaking on his YouTube channel, Alasdair Gold has claimed the Brazilian's injury issue is to do with his knee and is something which continues to flare up:

(52:20) "Emerson's got a little, he's got this problem in his knee that kind of keeps flaring up at the moment, occasionally, so obviously Porro got his chance again."

What does this mean for Porro's game time?

As aforementioned, since arriving in north London, Porro has not exactly had a smooth transition into life in the Premier League as he shared the minutes with Emerson.

But he has started the last two Premier League games now for Spurs and his performances have continued to develop after he made an impression coming on against Milan.

And he did so again on the weekend as he grabbed his first assist for the club with a superb cross which Harry Kane was able to head home.

Gold awarded the Spaniard with an 8/10 rating for his display in the game on Saturday as he played a role in all three of the goals for the hosts.

With Emerson struggling with an ongoing issue, this feels like the perfect opportunity for Porro to nail down some consistent displays for Spurs in the starting XI.

Because Emerson's displays have been so impressive recently it has felt perhaps a little unfair to dislodge him from the team just because of Porro's arrival.

But at the end of the day, Porro is a big-money signing for Spurs and fans will want to see him on the pitch as well as Antonio Conte who will have likely been crying out for a natural right wing-back in January.

There is definitely room for improvement in his game having lost possession 22 times and been dribbled past on five occasions (via SofaScore).

However, it does seem as if he could be set to be handed some back-to-back starts in the league if Emerson's issue is something Spurs want to treat with caution.