There’s a LOT to unpack from Thomas Frank’s most recent press conference this morning. Frank was behind the mic ahead of Tottenham Hotspur’s Champions League home fixture against Copenhagen on Tuesday,
but the fallout continues to settle from Saturday’s explosively poor loss to Chelsea.
The Chelsea horror show started with a seventh minute substitution for Lucas Bergvall who took a ball to the head after just two minutes and was withdrawn under concussion protocol for Xavi Simons. Frank said that due to the league’s rules for concussions, Bergvall will miss the next two matches while under evaluation, meaning he will not feature. Frank also said that Djed Spence and Mohammed Salah both picked up knocks against the Blues, but both could still feature tomorrow.
“Lucas got concussion, which was probably pretty obvious from the footage. Big praise to the medical team because it’s a tricky situation to be in when it’s two minutes into a game and everything is on it so well done to them because the players’ health is the most important thing. Djed and Mo got a knock. They could and should be available for tomorrow.”
Say what you want about Lucas Bergvall, but the guy certainly looked like he got his bell rung on Saturday. Withdrawing him was 100% the right move, and I’m glad it happened — it wasn’t too long ago that Lucas would’ve gotten his wish to stay on the pitch and would’ve played through that injury.
A knock wasn’t the only reason Djed Spence was in Tottenham’s news though. Cameras caught both Spence and Micky van de Ven apparently “snubbing” Frank after the match while walking off the pitch to the tunnel. Frank was apparently trying to get both players to go applaud the fans, despite a chorus of boos at full time, and neither were interested, clearly frustrated with the match.
Frank downplayed the incident in the immediate wake of the Chelsea loss, and today said that both players independently and unprompted came to him to apologize.
“Micky and Djed came into my office yesterday, unprompted. And just said: ‘Want to say sorry for the situation.’ They didn’t want it to look bad or disrespectful or all of the kind of perceptions you can get in this beautiful media world. That was not the intention at all towards me or the team or the club. They were just frustrated with the performance, the loss and the booing during the game.
“Of course I had to ask them about the situation they were walking in, what they were feeling, why they were doing it, because we all have a perception. And we are very, very good to have that strong [opinion]. That’s because they… whatever, because their mom wasn’t well, or they didn’t like the head coach, or they were irritated with the performance, or it’s because they lost, or whatever. We’re very, very good at that. None of us knows.
“So that would be my first question to them. How were they and why? Of course I’m happy, because I knew the question would come today, that they were coming in. And that means they care. I think that’s very good. They care about the team, the club. In this case, me.
“I’m happy with that. So that was very good. Then we just had a good talk about a lot of things. And like with everything, we keep it internally. Like I said to the players when I said that before, it will be very, very, very unusual if I ever throw a player under the bus. We’re all humans, but I’ll always protect them.”
That’s about what I thought. There was tons of speculation after Chelsea that the supposed snub was the first crack in Frank’s control of the club, or that it was clear evidence that he’d lost the dressing room and was about to get sacked, or whatever. It was none of those things — it was two players who just lost an important match in an extremely bad performance who were getting booed by their home support and were extremely frustrated.
Tottenham put out a putrid three shots against Chelsea with only one on target and an xG of 0.05, a historically bad output. Spurs’ defense has improved from last year, but they have struggled to progress the ball and create meaningful chances up front.
Frank was asked about the suggestions that he’s a defensive coach and has set up his team to play defensively at the expense of offensive output, and Frank pushed back on the assertion.
“I think it depends on whose narrative that is. The journalists? A few fans? I guess we have quite a few fans out there so I guess the ones who write on social media. I’m not on social media. I’m very aware we haven’t been free flowing, in some games, I think there’s definitely been some moments where we’ve been quite good. It’s something we work very hard on every single day.
“It’s fair to say every team I’ve managed, we’ve been able to score a lot of goals. Also a Brentford team with let’s say on paper lesser players, creating a lot of top goal scorers. I’m convinced we will do the same here. I think it’s fair to say we are also working very hard on it. The players are doing everything they can and it’s my job with the coaches to make sure they hit good relations, good structure and can be confident.”
Frank and the Spurs players will get an opportunity to prove the naysayers wrong tomorrow, hosting a Copenhagen side that are winless with one draw and two losses in their opening three matches and sit fifth from the bottom of the table, out of the playoff positions. They have a home draw vs. Bayer Leverkusen and losses at Qarabag and home to Dortmund. A win could potentially put Spurs up into the automatic qualification places ahead of a trip to Paris for a rematch against PSG on November 26. Hopefully the players are up for it.
