It’s been a whole two weeks without Premier League football to entertain us, but it’s back tomorrow, and Tottenham Hotspur have an away London derby vs. West Ham to play at the London Stadium. It’s the first time that Thomas Frank will have the option of playing with his two newest signings — Xavi Simons, whom Spurs signed from RB Leipzig, and Randal Kolo Muani, who joined on loan from PSG.
Frank spoke to the media earlier today about both players and about his opponents, and what it will mean for
him to manage his first London derby on Saturday afternoon. There was of course plenty of discussion about Daniel Levy’s departure as Executive Chairman and the reshuffle in the board room, but at least for me that was some of the least interesting parts of the press conference. More interesting was what Thomas Frank expressed about his team — the Spurs manager said that both Simons and Kolo Muani are in line to play against the Hammers, but Simons is a little further along in terms of fitness and readiness than RKM.
However, the news isn’t all good — Dominic Solanke is still recuperating from his own injury, and he will not feature.
“Everyone is fine, everyone returned from international duties well so that’s always positive. Very happy about that. Everyone seems to be in a good place. Dom will not be available still, don’t expect it to be too long but he will not be available for this game.
“Yeah, both [Simons and Kolo Muani] are looking good. Both of them are definitely in contention to be ready for the squad. Xavi, for natural reasons, is further down the line. He just started the first game for Holland and played a few games for Leipzig. Definitely in terms of Randal, it’s been a while since he’s played. Last time was in the Club World Cup. Hasn’t trained really with PSG. So he is not as fit as Xavi, but he looks good.”
Without putting words in Frank’s mouth, to me those tea leaves are reading that out of those two Simons has the better chance of starting the match tomorrow, but we could certainly see one or both on the bench or as late match substitutes. It would certainly make some sense to bring Xavi in off the bench for his first match and since he hasn’t had a ton of time to work with the full squad before the international break that might be the safe option. But we’ll find out tomorrow.
Frank did speak a little bit on where he sees Simons and Kolo Muani fitting into the squad on a tactical level.
“I have some ideas. I think it’s still a team I’m learning. I get to know better and better. Of course, I have key ideas, but, you know, something is to look from the outside, another thing is to, as I say, feel them. You’re around them. You speak to them. You watch them live, training, games. You watch the game back with, like, a very specific view.
“And then I have some ideas how I want to do it, and then you get surprised. Okay, that could look good, and other times you need to change a bit. So I learn about the team and the players.
“Xavi, I see him mainly as a 10 or a left-sided player or left winger. Whereas Kolo, I see he can him playing as striker and he can play both wings, I would say.”
This was also the first opportunity Frank had to comment on Tottenham’s champions League squad, which was named just before the players departed for their national teams. The big news was the decision, which was somewhat expected, to leave Mathys Tel out. Tel spoke to outlets in France about Frank’s phone call and the respectful way he communicated the bad news. Frank talked about Tel’s maturity in accepting his decision, but also took the opportunity to state his opinion that UEFA needs to make adjustments to squad sizes with so many teams playing in multiple competitions.
“Yeah, I think, first of all, that was an extremely difficult decision to make. I also think, in many ways, it was a bit unfair. I also think that the UEFA Champions League lists are not big enough. We know the load on the players is getting bigger and bigger. We have said it many times, we are hopefully playing 60-plus games. That’s without international games.
“So some of them can be involved in up to 70 games. So I think that we need probably a bigger squad. I can’t understand why we need to limit ourselves.
“I actually like the idea of the club-trained players. I think it’s a good thing, every team needs to develop their own players. So I think that’s good. Of course, that limits us a little bit as it stands. Hopefully, we get it after that, but because we had a less number, I had to make a decision now instead of making a decision before a team selection.
“Before I name, for example, I name 20 or 23 players tomorrow. For Champions League, you can name even more. So anyway, the squad you’re naming before every game, it’s, you know, performance, all that. Now I need to name it before I really know Mathys and I think he’s done well. I just had to take a tough decision.
“I think he’s been extremely mature. He’s 20-years-old. The way he handled it, the way he trains, everything about him, extremely impressive.”
Tottenham kick off away at West Ham tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. BST. As the Saturday televised late match, the game is broadcast on NBC in the United States and Sky Sports in the UK and streamed on Peacock.
