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Tottenham Hotspur boss Thomas Frank has joked he can blame Pape Matar Sarr for Randal Kolo Muani’s injury, after the French forward suffered a dead leg in training.
The France striker joined the north Londoners on transfer deadline day, on a loan deal from Ligue 1 giants Paris Saint-Germain; he was on loan at Juventus for the second half of last term.
Kolo Muani made his Spurs debut last week in the Champions League against Villarreal, coming off the bench for the final 13 minutes of the game.
The Frenchman, though, will need to continue to wait for his Premier League debut, as he suffered an injury in training following a collision with team-mate Sarr.
Frank joked he can blame Sarr for Kolo Muani being out, before admitting it is just an unfortunate training ground injury that is dragging on.
“[It happened] in training. I think it was Pape who ran into him, so I need to blame Pape”, the Spurs boss joked at a press conference.
“It’s very unfortunate, just a contact injury. It is one of those where they can take a week and then other times it is taking a couple of weeks because it started bleeding again unfortunately.”
Game Result Napoli (A) 2-1 Empoli (H) – two 4-1 Como (A) – two 1-2 Monza (H) 2-0 Lazio (A) 1-1 Venezia (A) 2-3 Serie A games Randal Kolo Muani scored in last season
Frank also lauded Tottenham midfielder Lucas Bergvall, stressing that he will do everything to help the Swede reach his high ceiling.
The Tottenham boss believes the onus is on himself and the coaching staff to make sure that Bergvall develops well.
“Hopefully as high as possible”, Frank said when asked what Bergvall’s ceiling is.
“My finest job, together with the coaches, is to maximise potential in every player, maximise potential in the team – that’s my most important task.
“Lucas is a fantastic, prime example of that, how can we maximise his potential?”
The Tottenham manager recently hailed Bergvall for his tireless stamina, stating that he sometimes need to instruct him to stop running.