Tottenham head coach Thomas Frank has spoken to Djed Spence about his conduct after the wing-back threw a jacket after being substituted at Nottingham Forest
Thomas Frank has revealed he's held talks with Tottenham wing-back Djed Spence over his conduct in light of last weekend's 3-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest.
The England international, who apologised to Frank in November after both he and Micky van de Ven appeared to ignore the Dane following the frustrating 1-0 defeat to Chelsea, threw a jacket after he was subbed off on 59 minutes at the City Ground.
Spence was initially limping after suffering a blow to his leg but he appeared to shake off the issue after the interval and was angered by his withdrawal.
Frank said: “I spoke to him. He was disappointed because he thought because of an injury he was subbed off and it wasn't, or that we thought he had an injury because of a dead leg. And he's fine, by the way."
The Tottenham boss added when asked whether Spence's behaviour must improve given it's the second incident in as many months: “I think he’s been highlighted twice, which, of course, is never perfect because then we need to use time on it here in the press conference so it’s best if we haven’t.
"It’s two situations where he’s very aware of the fact it didn’t look the best and we are dealing with young people.
"He’s 24 or 25 years old. How can I say, A big focus and pressure, and sometimes you don’t do exactly what is the perfect way, and you learn from it. You should learn from it and do it better in the future.”
Meanwhile, Frank is adamant he's the right man to "fix" Tottenham as he's working "24/7" to turn Spurs' fortunes around.
The under-fire Dane insists he's not yet feeling the heat in N17 after acknowledging that he's received private backing from the club's hierarchy in the aftermath of last weekend's horror 3-0 humbling at Nottingham Forest.
However, defeat to Liverpool today would mark a club-record 11th Premier League home loss in 2025 and that has never happened at Tottenham during a single calendar year.
Frank said: "I feel supported, I have done the whole time. As I said after the game and I haven't changed my mind, this is not a quick fix.
"This will take time but that's not to say that we're not going to do everything we can to beat Liverpool. I believe we have a good chance of doing that."
The former Brentford boss continued when asked if he's the right man to wrestle back the tide and drive the club forward: "I'm very comfortable and confident that I will, how can I say? Fix it.
"But when this club comes out on top, there will be a lot of good people working together, aligned at the same time through the years. I just know one thing I'm good at and that's analysing things.
"I know what good looks like and I know where we should get and one thing is I'm 1000% sure we haven't seen any club be successful unless they had key people making the right decisions for a long time."