The Tottenham Hotspur head coach has been speaking about his £51million summer signing and the upcoming January transfer window
Thomas Frank has no doubt that Xavi Simons will flourish at Tottenham Hotspur and has spoken about the club's aim in the January transfer window.
The 22-year-old playmaker arrived in N17 after the club had failed in moves for Morgan Gibbs-White and Eberechi Eze, and the Dutchman walked through the door in a £51million deal from RB Leipzig at the end of the summer transfer window but has not started a match for almost a month.
Xavi has two assists and no goals to his name in his 18 games so far but Tottenham have won six of the nine matches the Dutchman has started, while in stark contrast they have not won a single game he has been named on the bench for since he arrived, albeit some of those encounters were away against Arsenal, PSG and Newcastle.
Frank and Spurs come up against Brentford on Saturday afternoon and the mobile playmaker who flourished under the Dane, Mikkel Damsgaard. The 25-year-old recorded 11 assists and two goals last season and was intrinsic to Frank's high pressing style of play and the Tottenham boss believes Xavi can take on that role for him now.
"Yeah, definitely. That's one of the reasons why we got him here. I think he's got a very big potential to be that playmaker. How can you say? Creator but also finisher," he said. "I think he's very good at finishing, very good at scoring goals and arriving in the right areas. I have a big belief that he'll be very good for us.
"But it's like with anything, we like it to be like this, to make it work. Sometimes you come into a club where everything is smooth, everything is working, no problem, boom, you step in. Even that, you can see, compared with what we have seen at Liverpool, also coming into a champions [team], and it's not that easy all the time.
"All the time it takes a little bit longer. But as long as the player trains well, keeps the right attitude, keeps doing the right thing, step by step, we will see him flourish. I'm not in doubt of that. Just because we're always so good to judge him now, but probably after a year or two, oh, how good is he? Now everyone is talking about Damsgaard. He did two seasons before he really flourished in the third one."
Frank is still looking to build connections with his players after just four months at the helm as that will help strengthen the lines of communication for what he wants them to do.
"I'm a big believer in terms of trying to create a relationship, a professional relationship with the players. That's how I work. So it's the same with Xavi, with Mathys [Tel], with Brennan [Johnson]," he explained. "It's all the players, how do we get it working? And also with which players, where do we find the right position for them? So that's a constant development."
The Dane admits that he still doesn't know his best XI among the long-term injuries to James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke.
"I think that's fair [to suggest]. I’ve got an idea of quite a few positions. I also think there’s competition so not that easy all the time to say, 'OK, it’s jut those 11' because you need more than 11 players but normally you see most teams when they are finding their strongest team it will be those nine players all the time, and maybe change two. Or maybe sometimes it's 10," he said.
"It's a combination also with the amount of games and that rotation, so definitely for the rest of the season if we do well in the Champions League there will be rotations but it will be closer and closer until you see the main nine or 10 players that we go with."
One position in particular has seen numerous players used and that is the left wing. with nobody nailing down that spot since Son Heung-min's departure to LAFC in the summer. Johnson, Xavi, Wilson Odobert, Richarlison and Randal Kolo Muani have all been used in that position and in the recent home defeat to Fulham, nobody played on the left. Frank was asked if Spurs could look to sign a new left winger in the January transfer window.
"I think we look at not every position, but we're prepared in every position to see if there is something we can do to improve the squad," he said. "I think we always look into that. Right now, we just focus on doing everything we can to find the one that can take the next step. Plus, we always need more than one that do it to help the team, because there are starters and there are finishers."
Frank admits he has felt the extra weight of pressure since joining Spurs compared to what he faced at Brentford for almost nine years.
"Definitely, definitely I’ve felt that. It hasn’t surprised me because I knew that was the difference when I walked into it," he said. "But like anything else, you don’t know it before you're standing in it. Like really know it. So now I know it so 'ok, it’s like this, hmm'. Then we deal with it.
"I think the biggest difference obviously now is the amount of games, I think that’s the biggest thing. The short turnaround. Of course I experienced it during Covid, we had 21 games in a row, that was Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Wednesday and so on. We had two spells of 2-2-2, with a lot of travelling, that’s heavy.
"The ability also to think and nail the message, nail the team and all that bit, how you create a team that should be more and more in sync when maybe it’s not that easy because you need to rotate a bit and do those things. That's the challenge. That's the biggest difference."
So could Frank remain at Tottenham for almost a decade as he did with the Bees if he guides the north London club through this sticky period?
"Everything is possible. Ask me now and nine years is a long time. I've said it from the beginning, every action, everything I do is with two pathways," he said. "One, we need to win tomorrow and the day after and day after but everything is with a long-term vision.
"If you don't build anything with a long-term vision then I don't believe you are a top club. It shouldn't be 'oh we survived one more game' then there are pragmatic choices along the way, injuries, form. Bit by bit we will try to get closer to being a well-oiled engine that's impossible to stop."