Thomas Frank defended the performance of his players as Tottenham lost 2-1 against Aston Villa.
Spurs started fast, getting an early goal through Rodrigo Bentancur, but sweet strikes from Morgan Rogers and Emiliano Buendia turned around the scoreline in favour of the visitors. The patchy home form of Frank’s men continues, but the head coach was happy with the defensive stability of his side.
“The way the game panned out, I think was exactly how I expected it to be if I'm honest. Very even game against a very good Villa team set up very well by Unai where we performed quite well.
“Clearly they have a very good team with good players, but I think we dominated in good spells. I think we came out with very good intensity, very aggressive. I think we were good in high pressure.
“In the first half especially we broke well, and had four or five very good nearby moments where it was good transition opportunities. We got in front, continued second half, created good opportunities and then we could have scored the 2-0 Mohamed Kudus ruled offside and the Wilson Odobert chance.
“Defensively I think we were excellent. We gave away very little. There are couple of things you are going to look into when you look defensively. We gave away eight shots I think more or less. Very low xG, and Guglielmo Vicario didn't have a save. So if you have done that then then you're done well.
“We gave two goals away in a position outside the box with a lot of players behind the ball. If before the game they will shoot from there Rogers and Buendia with that situation, you say no problem it's not dangerous. In those nothing moment or very little moments they had more quality on the day.”