Tottenham head coach Thomas Frank had plenty of injury updates at his press conference in Norway ahead of the Champions League game at Bodo/Glimt.
Spurs are back in the Norwegian town by the sea following the Europa League semi-final second leg back in May and will again play on the artificial turf of the Aspmyra Stadion on Tuesday night for the league phase encounter. Frank had mixed updates on the injuries to strikers Dominic Solanke and Randal Kolo Muani as well as news on skipper Cristian Romero after the last-gasp draw against Wolves at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Frank in Bodo. Here's the full transcript from the press conference at the Aspmyra Stadion.
Can I check on the team news please? How is Dominic Solanke, Randal Kolo Muani and also Cristian Romero didn't seem to be training today?
Dom, you know, got that ankle issue that's been bothering him for a little while. So now we decided to make a minor surgery. It's a small procedure. So that will mean he's not ready for today, of course. And of course, Leeds he's out as well. We will have more news about time frame after the international break. But I don't expect it to be long.
Kolo Muani, I think now we're finally on top of his dead leg. So there's also progress there. So that's good. And Cuti [not travelling] was just precaution.
I can't imagine you generally look back at matches from previous seasons, but it wasn't really that long ago that Tottenham won here in a big match, have you looked at it and what can you take from it?
Yeah, I've looked at that game, of course. But I've also looked at a lot of other games of Bodo. I think they're a fantastic team. I think their club is fantastic. I think their story is unique in many ways. I'm pretty sure that the whole of Europe knows about Bodo, because I think it's a little bit of a fairytale. I like, of course, that Scandinavian link between Denmark and Norway.
So of course I follow them a little bit, maybe a tiny bit closer, and the background I'm coming from, to see how they have built that club through years of some core group of people, aligning strategy, structure, hard work over years.
And then just build a smaller club suddenly to be the absolute force in Norway and now competing in the Europe over many seasons. That's extremely impressive, I think. Kjetil Knutsen and his staff is remarkable, what they have done. Their style of play is quite unique in many ways. Extremely well-coached team. Big praise, I admire them a lot.
What can you take from that particular performance?
That's one performance. That's the game. How many months is that? Four months ago. With all due respect, I was not the coach. Some group of players, they have some group of players. This is a new game. This is a new situation. We go into it with huge respect. For Bodo, it's going to be very difficult [for us]. Their home record here in European games, all that's unique, with I think 31 wins out of 39, something like that. They apparently have scored in more or less every home game in 46 games in a row. We know what we are facing. Of course, we also have to trust in ourselves.
You chose not to train here tonight, you talk about their home advantage so why do you choose not to train here?
Because we have one training session. If we have training here and we want to do a little bit of tactical, with all due respect I think it would be a little bit more obvious what we would do. That's the thing we like to keep for ourselves. Then, yes, you can say if we train here for how long we are allowed, 45 minutes, Is that going to make a difference? I know the surface is different. If you really want to get used to it, I think you need to train here day in, day out as Bodo do. We are ready for that challenge. But for me, mainly, mainly, mainly, it was the tactical reason.
Stale Solbakken told us you're the nicest man in the world but you also had a few run-ins, what was your relationship like with hi?
Stale, when we are in Copenhagen, you can have a few infights in that area. But Stale is a man and a football coach I admire a lot. What he built in Copenhagen was also incredible over many, many, many years. Now he is here representing his country. They have started very well, so I am very happy on his behalf in many ways. A good colleague and good friend in the football environment.
Bodo have a lot of Norwegian players, what do you make of it?
A little bit on that, as you say more or less Norwegian players, and a few Danish players as well, of course. Just to add a spark, no, jokes aside. That makes it even more impressive, I think, that you do it with more or less Norwegian players built from this country. It is remarkable.
What is the best team in Scandinavia? Is it Copenhagen or Bodo?
You put me on the spot there. I think, let me put it this way, I would like to see a match between the two teams. There was a lot of talk about Malmö and Copenhagen when they played each other in the quarter, not the play-off, the one before. I think that would be very interesting between the two styles. I think they are very close to each other, I must admit. What was the first question? I forgot it because you put me on the spot.
What is Bodo's biggest weakness and how do you plan to exploit it?
I think I would rather like to say about their biggest strength is their structure in the way they play. They are so well coached, so their patterns are so clear, which I think is a huge strength. So, I'm very aware that we are... Yes, we come from the Premier League and so on but we also see last year that we had to defend very well. No doubt about that. They are so good and clear in how they want to do things. And also they play very, very quick on this pitch.
We've seen a lot of improvements already in the defence of this team since you arrived. I just wonder what you think of the creativity in the last few weeks and how you see where improvements can be made in that department?
I think in terms of the creativity or maybe creating more chances, dominating a bit more, I think the Brighton game was a very good game. I think the first half against Wolves was good, we didn't score, but I think all the right signs were there, so I think it's a step forward.
As I said before, I think it's natural. Last year, most of the game, it was Kulusevski, Maddison, Sonny and Dom who played more or less the front four.
Now we have more or less a new front four and they are doing very well. One of them sitting next to me is doing very well, having a very good start to the season. I think they're gelling more and more together and we try to give them the best patterns and principles.
Do you feel like it's been a bit of a wasted month almost with Dom because of trying to get him back into training?
I think you can look from two ways. That's the easy answer, but it's not that easy. If we knew we could have done the surgery a month ago, we probably would have done it. So for me, I'm always like I imagine, ‘oh, it is what it is, we deal from now’.
No doubt that the way we dealt with this was because we thought that was the right way because I think in general, no one wants a surgery, no matter how small it is.
The goalkeeper, Nikita Haikin, said earlier today that it was unusual to see a team like Spurs going for long throws and set-pieces everywhere on the pitch? What do you make of that?
Who said that, sorry?
The goalkeeper, Nikita.
OK. Erm, I personally think that set-pieces are an extremely important part of football. Isn't there a stat that 33 per cent or something like that that all goals are scored from set-pieces?
So I think it's clever to utilise a third of your opportunities to try to score a goal. I'm happy, that's a fine comment. If you think that's a strength of ours, I'm happy with that.
How big a difference does the pitch make? I know everybody always talks about it, but would you have to change tactical approach according to the pitch?
No, not really a tactical approach. Of course we are aware. It's the same in Denmark, when I was coach for Brøndby, we were facing Nordsjaelland at that time.
It was also a different surface. It's the same today. It's fine. They're good here, they're very good at home. For me, I think there's a lot of talk about the pitch. I rather want to praise the team, the Bodo team, and their coach, what they do.
Because they do it quite consistently, home and away, the way they play. So I'm pretty sure they get the answer or the question sometimes, can they play on grass when they go away from home? Of course they can. So it's a feature pitch. Players like Lucas have played on them their whole life. Lots of our players have played there.
I know we need to speak about it, but I think, I'm pretty sure all the journalists, Kjetil, myself, all the players just want to talk about football.
Just following up on Romero. What was the issue?
Just precaution.
Is it muscle?
No, just precaution.
