Here's every single word the Tottenham head coach said after the defeat to Fulham in the Premier League on Saturday evening
Thomas Frank grew irritated with the media at his press conference after Tottenham's 2-1 defeat against Fulham on Saturday.
Fulham had taken the lead just three minutes in after some sloppy Spurs play. First Danso sent a loose header to the visitors and then Bergvall misjudged a Samuel Chukwueze pass which landed at the feet of Kenny Tete. His shot deflected off Udogie and into the net.
Then just three minutes later and Guglielmo Vicario came out to claim a ball outside of his box and inexplicably chose not to knock it out of play and instead hit a weak pass down the line and the ball eventually fell to Harry Wilson, who curled the ball from the touchline into the empty net. Vicario was booed with his next two touches and then cheered when he next kicked the ball out of play.
Chukwueze curled an effort against the left-hand post before Micky van de Ven prevented a third Fulham goal with a last-gasp tackle to stop the same Fulham player after he had rounded Vicario.
Spurs hit a goal back on 59 minutes when Lucas Bergvall picked up a loose ball and chipped a ball to Kudus and the Ghanaian lashed a left-footed half-volley into the top left corner with Bernd Leno only getting fingertips to it on its way in. Bergvall had a header cleared off the line but Spurs never really did enough after that to justify a point, let alone all three and now they have won just three games in 21 home league matches.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Frank after the game. Here's the full transcript from the press conference at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
What were your thoughts on the game? First half was a disaster but the second half seemed much better.
I think you described it well. Definitely conceding two goals in six minutes gives us a mountain to climb. I think it is the classic (thing that) when you are in a bad spell or a tough spell, things go against you. First one is a deflected shot and the second one is a mistake from Vicario. It happens.
I didn’t like how the fans reacted to that. They booed at him straight after and also three or four times when he was on the ball. For me that is unacceptable. They can’t be true Tottenham fans. Booing after (the game), fair. No problem. But when we are playing we need to be together. If we turn it around, we need to do it together. That is hugely important for me.
Then we rushed first half. I think the team was a little bit shell shocked after the two goals. Big ambition to do everything right and come out and turn it around and get that home win. And then you are 2-0 down it just makes it so difficult and they are human beings. We rushed it too much.
Second half I liked much more. Scored a good goal, had opportunities to score the equaliser. Unfortunately couldn’t get it.
Have you spoken to Vicario?
No but I will.
The formation felt overloaded on the right with nothing on the left?
That’s true.
What was the thinking behind that?
I wanted two strikers in and around each other which looked good at times but of course the gameplan was definitely way more difficult after the 2-0.
Fans booing during the game. Do you understand the frustration?
Yeah but I think we need to be clear on what I talked about. I talked about after Vic, that I didn’t like. That is unacceptable. You can’t be after one player. Let me finish. I think that is very important because if you want anyone to perform you need to be behind them. In my opinion, that’s what you get to get people to perform in the best possible way. After, no problem.
I guess maybe it's part of the same thing. You want to come out and put on a big performance, get a big win, and within eight minutes the team is 2-0 down...
Six minutes. So your question is what?
Do you understand the fans' frustration after eight minutes when the team is 2-0 down?
Of course I understand. That's not what I said. Completely I understand the frustration when it's not working. I think we were all a bit that it's going against us and it's frustrating in many ways, so that I understand. No problem.
Just watching your players when they gathered together to come off at the end of the first half, it feels like they have a bit of a problem with the fans, that there's a huge disconnect, leaving aside what happened today. Do you sense that as well?
I think there's nothing that the players, I, everyone want to get the win here. Nothing we want more. And I hope the fans can see that they were running out there today, giving everything. But football is so beautiful and complex.
It's 11 players that need to be in sync and play and run at the same time. And there are small setbacks during games, you need to get through it and stick to the plan, stick to the bits. And sometimes it's just more tough.
And sometimes you're in a spell where it's difficult, which it is right now. But there's only one way, it's going forward and do everything you can to get out of it together. So there's only one thing, we keep going and do everything we can to win the next home game.
You mentioned with the formation, you didn’t want too much on the left, wanted the two forwards, does that not leave you too predictable that everything will go down the right?
Yeah, I think for me the first half was clearly we were rushing things too much. We were going in behind when we shouldn’t go in behind, we were playing in the middle when we shouldn’t play in the middle and all those bits because we were rushing too much. I think it is difficult to judge the first half. Of course it is a part of everything and it looked much better second half and also before I made three changes.
With that first half in mind and last week at Arsenal, are you worried the players are not taking on board your messaging?
No, I am not (worried), because I think we have seen clearly other times it has worked much better. Maybe we haven’t been absolutely free-floating, but it looked much better. I think it is isolated in two different games. The Arsenal game was hopefully a big one-off in terms of the overall performance. I think PSG it looked like they took on board my messages it is fair to say and second half, it looks like they took on my messages. And I think this game we are behind 2-0 down after six minutes with all the nice, good questions that we want to do so well to get back on track. I think there are so many things into it.