Tottenham boss Thomas Frank has defended his captain Cristian Romero after the defender attacked the board in a since-edited social media post.
Following Spurs’ 3-2 defeat away at Bournemouth, Romero took to Instagram to point the finger at the club’s senior figures, suggesting they only speak “when things are going well, to tell a few lies”.
“At times like this, it should be other people coming out to speak, but they don’t – as has been happening for several years now,” he said in a post that has since been edited.
“They only show up when things are going well, to tell a few lies.”
The nature of January football means that not even 24 hours after the defeat, Frank was back in front of the media to preview his side’s FA Cup match against Aston Villa on Saturday and was asked directly about Romero’s comments.
Unsurprisingly, Frank tried to downplay the drama between the club and the player.
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“I think after Cuti became the captain he’s done a lot of good things right,” Spurs boss Frank said.
“I said it when I named him the captain that even though he’s an experienced player, he’s tried a lot, he’s still a young leader. And I think a lot of the things he’s done well on and off the pitch I’m happy with.
“I’m actually very happy with his performance last night, I think he was a true captain in many ways throughout the game.
“Speaking at half-time when we were 2-1 down, keep believing, keep doing the right things. But also when you’re a young leader sometimes you make a mistake, of course it’s good to keep it internally.
“[Sporting director] Johan [Lange] and I had a good conversation with him this morning about everything, which we of course keep internally.”
Despite Frank’s apparent calmness, pressure is building on the former Brentford boss with Spurs stuck in 15th and having endured the fourth worst form of any team in the league.
With some suggestions another bad result would hand him the sack, Frank has insisted he is focused on the next match and that performances have been there even if the scorelines says otherwise.
“I think there’s a couple of things in it,” he said.
“I think the last five games we played, Liverpool, Crystal Palace, Brentford, Sunderland and Bournemouth, I think it’s been consistent, good competitive performance through the roof? No, but good competitive, consistent performances and that’s what you need in a long season.
“Those five games should have given us more than the five points we got, probably eight, nine, 10 points.
“And if you get that from those games, it’s different. So that’s what we’re focusing on. Can we produce performances like that last night? Overall, like the performance, it’s my job to deal with all the scrutiny. It’s no problem, I can face all the questions, I’ll take all the blame, I’ll take all that.
“Also, my job is to look through everything and look through the defeat last night. Of course, it was very emotional and tough to take for everyone, but I think it was in many ways good and we deserve more from that.
“So we just need to keep doing that, especially the last two games, it’s a minimum of four points we should have, if not more. So we just need to keep doing that. And the next thing is, it’s almost the perfect storm.
“In a storm, some are building fences and hiding behind it, others are building windmills and getting stronger and getting more energy and learning from it.”