MICKY VAN DE VEN and Djed Spence have said sorry for blanking Thomas Frank after Saturday’s shocker against Chelsea.
Stand-in captain Van de Ven, 24, and England star Spence, 25, walked past Frank after the final whistle, snubbing their manager’s plea to applaud the fans for their support.
It was a striking image after the dismal 1-0 defeat, with Frank helplessly looking back at the pair for a number of seconds as they stormed off down the tunnel.
Speaking ahead of tuesday night’s Champions League hosting of FC Copenhagen, Frank revealed: “Micky and Djed came into my office yesterday, unprompted, and just said: ‘I want to say sorry for the situation.’
“They didn’t want it to look bad or disrespectful or all of the kind of perceptions you can get in this beautiful media world.
“That was not the intention at all towards me or the team or the club. They were just frustrated with the performance, the loss and the booing during the game.”
The flash point came after Spurs fans booed the team DURING the match against Chelsea, during which Tottenham registered their lowest-ever xG 0.05 since records began in 2012.
That statistic refers to the amount of goals a team is expected to score in a match, and it was the worst return of any Premier League side this season.
Van de Ven and Spence, who missed training with a knock but should be available this evening went in separately to see Frank.
The Dane added: “Of course I’m happy (they came to see him), because I knew the question would come today, that they were coming in.
BEST FREE BETS AND BETTING SIGN UP OFFERS
“And that means they care. I think that’s very good. They care about the team, the club. In this case, me. I’m happy with that. So that was very good.
“Then we just had a good talk about a lot of things. And like with everything, we keep it internally.
“Like I said to the players when I said that before, it will be very, very, very unusual if I ever throw a player under the bus. We’re all humans, but I’ll always protect them.”
The frustration emanating from the stands was vocalised with boos at half-time and full-time by supporters, as well as in the final few minutes of the action itself with Tottenham struggling to create a chance, let alone score an equaliser.
Frank said he understood the supporter reaction but urged for the crowd to stick with his side to help them in similar situations.
The ex-Brentford boss added: “The fans were fantastic the first 30 minutes and after the game if we perform badly and on top of that we lost the game, more than fair enough they boo us.
“But during the game, we need a little bit of help.
“And especially when it’s not going the right way. They can be the turning point. We are down 1-0 last 15, imagine they carry us over the line. We got a little of an unfair 1-1, what a feeling. That point can be the difference in a long season.”
Spurs have lost three of their seven games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this season, with the only thoroughly convincing display coming at home to Burnley on the opening day.
Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario revealed the team had talked through what happened against Chelsea and echoed his manager’s call for fans to keep up their support until the final whistle.
The Italian added: “Of course, we have spoken.
“I think probably in some moments during the game… probably when we are chasing, we need to be a little more cool heads and if we have a little bit more help from some situations coming from the stands it could be, of course, better.”