Here's every single word the Tottenham Hotspur boss said after the FA Cup defeat at the hands of Aston Villa in third round on Saturday
Thomas Frank had to explain another Tottenham defeat as the club exited the FA Cup with a 2-1 loss at home to Aston Villa in the third round on Saturday night.
Spurs went behind 22 minutes in as Donyell Malen easily turned, ran and passed to the unmarked Emiliano Buendia, who sprinted on and crashed a shot home. The hosts then lost Richarlison to a hamstring injury in the first half, with Randal Kolo Muani replacing the Brazilian.
In first half added time Villa scored again. Mathys Tel gave the ball away on the edge of the Tottenham box and after a flurry of passes, including a clever backheel from Buendia, Morgan Rogers fired home.
The hosts found a goal back nine minutes into the second half when Kolo Muani won the ball back in the Villa half, sprinted on and played in Wilson Odobert to strike a low shot into the bottom left corner of the net.
Spurs huffed and puffed but could not find a leveller, to keep themselves in the competition they first won as a non-league side in 1901. There was a late appearance from Dominic Solanke, making his return after four-and-a-half months out.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Frank after the defeat. Here's the full transcript from the press conference at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
What are your reflections on the game?
I think it was a good second half. We played with energy, passion, intensity, how we want to play. Play with penetration, runs and passes through the middle. Scored a good goal. We had other chances and opportunities to get the equaliser. Couldn't get that, unfortunately. So that's a disappointing thing.
First half was not as good. Especially after that goal. We can't concede the second one. That would have kept us more in the game for second half. But second half was the energy. The cooperation and unity with the fans was brilliant. They were very good.
Do you feel, in terms of the second half, you need more in terms of bringing players in this window to help you now?
I think we definitely need to do everything we can to play two good halves, which is, I think every team wants to do that. Every team wants to be consistent in that aspect.
In terms of transfer market, as I said many times, we are out there working very hard, trying to improve the squad.
It feels like you've done so much work with Richarlison to get him fit and firing, does it look like a hamstring injury?
Yeah, it could look like that. I think we've done a lot of things right to get him where he is now. I think he's done a lot of things right. It's not only about us, it's about every club. I think there's a few injuries across the Premier League. I think it's something for the football authorities to look into as well.
We played five games in 13 days, four in ten. One of the few clubs who did that. This is our third time this season. That's the most tricky thing with two days in between. We're dealing with it. We're doing everything we can to compete in it, but that's a tough schedule.
The club made a strong declaration that it wanted to compete in all competitions this season but it's out of the two cups pretty early, albeit to tough teams, what's the message to the fans after that wasn't achieved?
Of course that's disappointing. I said before the game that we went full strength. There was nothing. There were players we couldn't...should we energise. Micky [van de Ven] is in a top place, but that was definitely a player to think about [resting]. But we wanted to do everything we could to win the game.
We did everything we could, especially the second half. You can see we did everything we could. Unfortunately we faced a good Villa team as well. They made two moments. They scored two goals. We could only have made one.
What was the main difference between the first and second half?
I think there is a little bit of momentum. Against Sunderland, we played a very good first half and couldn’t keep it up second half. Here we played a much better second half. We came out with more energy, passion and determination. That of course we need to do everything we can to get over 90 minutes. We need to keep working on that.
It was a good second half but a defeat and out of FA Cup. What can you say to fans that think the season is virtually over now?
Yes, of course that is disappointing. We are all hurt. There is nothing we want to do more than to get through to the next round no matter who we face. We play at home, we had a good opportunity and unfortunately we couldn’t go through. We went with full strength in terms of how we could do. We will look back on the game and there are things we can do better first half, but second half very good, so yeah.
With what happened at the end, are your players losing control?
I don’t think so. I guess you have seen the situation through? I just saw it to be sure I saw what I saw. Of course it’s all about keeping a cool head. The players gave everything, everything out there, (but) losing a tight game, season not going perfect and I think Ollie is very provoking. The way he is going down to celebrate in front of the Villa fans and he is walking into Joao, he can just easily walk around. I think everyone that has been in a competitive nature, that is difficult and can trigger things.
Have Villa got a habit of provocation?
That I don't know.
Did your Brentford team have some afters last season? The final whistle.
Maybe that. I remember there was one game, yeah. But that I don't want to... (speak about) I don't know that about Villa. I'll just speak about this situation.
Is ill-discipline a growing trend in your Tottenham side?
I think it's like you need to play with passion. And when you play with passion, then sometimes you play to the line. And sometimes a little bit borderline.
So, I see players with big passion that want to do very well for the club. And I think that's very important. And of course, you also need cool heads.
Did you wait to make subs because of a lack of depth?
Yeah. Basically, that was it. I don't think we, for whatever reason, had the depth in the bench today. We basically didn't have a midfielder to replace Archie and Joao. So I had a few solutions in my head, if we had to lose one of them. We fortunately didn't. So that was part of it, yeah.
Do you have to start performing to get fans back on side?
Oh, yeah. We all know there's only one way to have everyone happy. That is performing consistently and winning enough games. That's the only way.
And we could see, second half especially, the energy, how they feed off each other, the players and the fans. It was a fantastic experience to be in the middle of it. Unfortunately, we couldn't get that fantastic comeback, which sometimes kicks start a momentum. And that's what we are working very hard to do.
But I think the fans, the way they backed the team and pushed them forward, second half was very, very good. I still think it's, first and foremost, us. First and foremost, us.
We need to perform, and then they can feed off the energy. But of course, we also need them in tough times, which they are there. They're travelling in big numbers to away games, and they are backing us. So that's a two-way (solution).