Here's every word the Tottenham Hotspur boss said at his press conference on Tuesday ahead of the Champions League match at Eintracht Frankfurt
Thomas Frank faced the media at his press conference on Tuesday evening in Germany ahead of Tottenham's Champions League match at Eintracht Frankfurt.
Spurs know that a victory against a managerless Frankfurt side that has nothing to play for will book their spot in the round of 16. Tottenham's European adventures have been good, but Premier League form under Frank has been dreadful with just two victories from 14 matches, including Saturday's disappointing draw at 19th-placed Burnley.
Frank was asked about his future, the prospect of further transfers in the final days of the winter transfer window and the latest injury updates, including a car accident involving Randal Kolo Muani.
The Spurs forward, on loan from PSG, was driving from the club's Enfield training ground to Stansted Airport on Tuesday to catch the team flight to Germany when he was involved in an accident that left the right-hand side of his Ferrari smashed, his windscreen cracked and his airbag deployed.
The 27-year-old Frenchman's compatriot Wilson Odobert was behind him on the motorway and pulled over to check that his team-mate was alright after the accident.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Frank. Here's the full transcript from the press conference at the Deutsche Bank Park.
What's the latest team news, plus there's a photo of Odobert and Kolo Muani in a car crash?
There are a few things to report. Kolo Muani and Wilson Odobert are both fine. Unfortunately they were both involved in a minor accident … everyone else involved in that accident was fine. It was a tyre blowing up and so the two of them are a little bit delayed. But they will land later tonight. Then, Pedro hasn’t travelled. Unfortunately he picked up a hamstring injury to be out for four weeks. Micky has not travelled. Minor thing. It’s possible he’s available for the weekend.
Do you have a Dejan Kulusevski update?
No, I don’t have any update on that one.
The Premier League and Champions League form have been miles apart. Why? Do the players feel more pressure in Premier League games and freed up more in Europe? It must be driving you crazy?
First foremost, tomorrow, for me, we have a great opportunity to secure a position in the top eight. Which would be a very good result, a very good achievement. Be very positive. We’re looking forward to that. That’s what we are focusing everything we can on. The other thing is that I think the performances for a while have been good in many ways. We just haven’t got on the right side enough to get the three points. We working very hard on that. Sometimes you are on that spell, the players are giving you everything but for me tomorrow, it’s all about the opportunity.
How confident are you of getting another player through the door before the transfer window closes?
We are in the market. We do everything we can to see if we can improve the squad. We said that the whole time. I think it's, of course, when things are not exactly what we wanted and we have some injuries, you can be pushed and forced to take decisions you don't really want to take if everything was on top.
So we need to be very, very smart and cool and calm and take good decisions to help us to optimise short-term success, but also secure long-term success.
Could I just ask a little more detail on the car accident? Were they coming to the airport or to training and were they both in that car?
I'm actually in doubt if they were both in that car, if I'm honest, but they were together. But they're fine, it was on the way to the airport.
We sat in this very room last season with your predecessor on what felt like a knife edge that if you lost, maybe you'd lose the job. At the end of the season, you won thanks to Dom and his penalty and turned it around, does it feel like you're on a knife edge again and does that make things harder?
I can't speak about last year, Dom can maybe talk about that in a second. For me, I see an opportunity ahead of us tomorrow that we want to do everything we can to grapple with both hands. I think it's quite clear, I said before the Dortmund one, that with just a small time in injuries and the squad list, we have limited players available.
So since that game, Lucas unfortunately is not available and Pedro. So the good news is, we have Pape back from winning AFCON with Senegal. He was not in the squad on the weekend because he had some illness, so he's not super where he should be, but he's available.
I think with Joao Palhinha, he's also available, so that's also a positive. So I think we have, again, I think 11 outfield players. Then great opportunities for academy players coming on off the bench.
We saw Jun’ai got a fantastic debut against Dortmund. We are confident we can produce a result and that’s what we’ll go for tomorrow.
Back to the car accident, I know you’ve got a lot of things going on at the moment…
Ah, a few things!
Were they both shaken? Are they both in the right frame of mind to perform?
That is my absolute understanding of everything. I haven’t spoken to them personally yet. The first message is that they are fine and nothing happened, as I said the first time. They will fly out later and I fully expect both to be available for tomorrow.
The Champions League results - how proud are you so far of them and do you think you’ve had the credit you deserve for them?
I think it’s… again, it’s not about me. It’s about us. I’m very happy that the team and club are in a position where with a win tomorrow we can finish top eight in the best club tournament in the world. It’s super, super competitive, as we know. So that, we are very pleased with. Those results and some of those performances are also what we need to take going forward, of course, and build on that.
Again, it’s my job to look a little bit in the bigger perspective. Even though we haven’t won as much as we want, it’s very, very few things that need to go our way, the small margins, keep doing the right thing, keep improving things we want to do, getting quality players back as Dominic Solanke has talked about before.
Dom is huge for us, he’s been out for six months. To have your main striker and top-scorer out, I’d like to see some of the other teams be without that as well. So that means something.
Dom is a physical beast and has a great mentality but of course he push it to the limit as well, coming from being off the bench, playing 50 minutes, then 70 minutes coming off with cramp then 90 minutes. He’s pushing everything he can but it’s a tough job with short turnarounds.
Another injury for the team with Pedro Porro, it must feel like one thing after another?
It definitely does not help any of us. Of course, we prefer to have the best players out there on the pitch. Any coach wants that and any teammate wants that, but we also have a squad and need other players to step up as they’ve done and perform
Is it is easier to focus mentally on the Champions League?
Maybe there’s not a specific science behind it but the mental and physical load on players to produce every third and fourth game is so big and it’s more difficult to do that. And the bigger the competition, the progress from Europa League to Champions League means better teams and you need to give more and for that you need players and a squad that’s not used to it but learning all the time to go out and produce the way I want so that’s a big thing. And a lot of teams are adapting. Newcastle spoke a lot about it when they were first in the Champions League a couple of years ago. And even this season as well. So we just need to learn and keep producing. Sometimes it’s the small things where even if you’re doing them you don’t get the result and then the whole thing is a catastrophe but actually behind the scenes there’s a lot of things going in the right direction.
Are you happy with Antonin Kinsky, there's been links with him to West Ham?
In general, happy with Kinsky. He’s a great keeper. I think any player wants to play but we also need good players if something happens with Vic for example.
With Micky is it a hamstring?
It’s just a minor thing. We expect him to be a big possibility for City.
Not a hamstring?
It’s not a hamstring.
You're facing an Eintracht Frankfurt team in crisis, what do you make of them?
We have studied them closely. They may not be in their best form, but it’s a team that has done fantastic in the league last year and I still think they have done some fantastic games this season. They just played 3-3 with Dortmund I think four or five games ago. They have very good players and they have a clear identity in what they want to do. I expect a very difficult game. We know they are very good in the transitions. I know on paper they don’t have anything to play for but sometimes you can play free, I have been in this game long enough that you never know what you’re going to face. We have to focus on us with big respect for Frankfurt and all their strengths.
