Here's the full transcript with every single word Thomas Frank said ahead of Tottenham's trip to Nottingham Forest in the Premier League
Thomas Frank had news to share in his press conference on Friday afternoon at Hotspur Way ahead of Tottenham's Premier League clash at Nottingham Forest.
The Spurs boss has enjoyed a better 10 days that brought a battling draw at Newcastle and back-to-back wins at home against Brentford and Slavia Prague in the Premier League and Champions League respectively. Now Tottenham make the trip to Nottingham Forest to face the physical test that one of Frank's good friends, Sean Dyche, will ensure his team bring at the City Ground.
Frank delivered the latest injury news on Brennan Johnson and Dominic Solanke in a wide-ranging press conference which included some big words about Archie Gray.
Our Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold was among those putting the questions to Frank. Scroll down for the full transcript from the press conference at Hotspur Way.
What's the latest team news?
Everyone who was available for Slavia will be available for Slavia.
Solanke has posted an emoji of an hourglass on social media? Is that good news?
Yeah I guess it’s good news when he posted there. As I said with Dom because it’s an injury he picked up in July and it’s dragged on for a while, I would much more prefer to say instead of ‘he is back soon’ and all of that, when he is training fully with the team and is available for selection that’s when I will say something. Hopefully there will be lots of footage of him training but yeah that is my message.
Spurs have scored more goals over the last week. Have you taken the handbrake off?
I don’t think we have taken the handbrake off. We work with the things. Football is so beautifully simple sometimes but also so complicated. I think a lot about the relationship, the team being a little bit in sync, the right players being sharp and in form. All of that at the same time helps.
There are three players I would like to mention. Richy is in maybe not his best form ever but a very good place. Also physically Mo Kudus is, after a great start to the season, a little dip and a minor injury, back in full energy and looking sharp. Xavi is performing at a good top level. Those three together give the offensive part of the game much more.
Can the players go and watch the darts if they perform well?
Every player has their own hobbies and what they think is interesting. I always expect them to be professional and 24/7 pros. If they go to the theatre or the darts it’s up to them.
I know you said that things have come together, the attacking players you just mentioned, those three. But has the mood felt different in the last couple of weeks around the club?
Yeah, you know, wins and good performances always helps, no doubt about that. It just makes things a little bit lighter and everything is a little bit more positive. So, of course, that means something. But it's an ongoing, how can you say, work to constantly improve. So that's part of it.
What would you say then has clicked, between those three that you just mentioned?
I just think it's just the one simple thing, all three of them in form and sharp and confident at the same time. That helps something, definitely. And the relationship and the principles and the patterns we're working with are also just getting better and better.
You'll never say that any team is necessarily an easy game. And I'm not saying that Forest is going to be an easy game, but picking up a couple of wins may be a more preferable fixture coming up this weekend against a team that you'd fancy yourself to go and get another win...
I guess you have seen Sean Dye's teams over the years. Are they easy or difficult to play against?
Difficult
Difficult. Very difficult. I expect a very, very difficult game against a team who's managed by a good colleague, a friend of me in the game. And every single time I see his team, everything I'm analysing, they're extremely competitive. Then they play home. That's a difficult place to go.
So, I expect a tough, tough game. I think we are in a fine place, not an exceptional place, but I think we're in a fine place. I think we've been good away from home. I think we've been very competitive. I expect us to go there with confidence and belief. I expect us to go there with a good chance of getting three points. But I also expect it to be unbelievably difficult.
How do manager’s relationships work, do you ever go for a drink together?
No, yeah. Well, I think, of course, some you meet with in different circumstances for whatever reason, but we come together, and the coaches talk about life and football. And I think it's fair to say that we're the only ones that really understand each other.
We're in the same (insert swearword) together and dealing with the same problems and the same all sorts of things. So I think that's nice to share experiences and thoughts with good colleagues and friends there. So, of course, when we play against each other, it's very competitive.
How do you get more consistent, because I guess you'd rather be boring and more consistent along a line than one week up and the next week down?
Yeah, I think if you look into performances, I think it's about having consistent performances and then some of the consistent performances doesn't necessarily pay off in a good result.
So those performances I think have been fairly consistent. I think there have been three games I'm very unhappy with in terms of performances. The rest have been with quite a good stuff in them and some of them very good.
And that's just ongoing work to keep getting us more consistent, to keep competing every single game. We're competing in all different competitions. So that's quite normal. That will take a little bit of time.
With Archie Gray, it seemed like last season he was playing everywhere, bar where he wanted to play and goal. Is that what you've seen? Are you deliberately playing him now in the position that you think he's best in?
Yeah, I think I like what I see from Archie. I think he's a very talented young player with a big potential. And I think we've seen glimpses of that now. I think I said a few times before the Monaco game he was really on a high and really ready to kick on and unfortunately got the calf injury.
Now I think he's back in a place where he's really ready to compete again. I like what I've seen from him. Everything from the Burnley game in the beginning of the season to those bits in the Fulham game I liked from him. I think there was definitely very good bits in the Brentford game and also in the Slavia game.
After the recent fixture frenzy, you finally got two days off. I just wondered, how does Thomas Frank unwind? How do you recharge your batteries in just two days?
Of course I try to simply just relax a bit. I have time with my wife and maybe see some friends for lunch or dinner. But I must say there's still bits to be done. So unfortunately these two days were not purely days off. But at least I was at home. But there were meetings I had to prepare bits and pieces for. I think the next day where I do nothing football is maybe in March. There's also a transfer window coming up and there's still so many things. I'm still new into the job. So a lot of things.
About your full-backs, obviously no Destiny for a little while, but we saw Ben Davies come back the other day and he got a great ovation from the crowd as well, how important is he going to be in these coming weeks when you need to rotate?
Very important. Very good to have been out there for the first time this season I think actually playing minutes. I would say we missed him with his injuries. Now he's good and ready. So that's important.
Do you see him more as a left-back in your team rather than a centre-back?
I think he can both be a left-back and a centre-back.
Brennan Johnson, obviously he wasn't available for Slavia. What's wrong with him and when can we expect him?
Minor thing. I expect him to be available for Forrest. He trained today.
Just a very quick one on Dom, because of the social media and the way you phrased it about telling us when he's fully training with the team, can we assume he's just training by himself at the moment?
He is, yeah.
On the grass?
Yeah.
Has he kicked a ball yet?
(Laughs) I'm happy to answer all these questions. I'm just a little bit bored of it because let's talk about Forest. It's much more interesting. So much better news when you say now 'he's training fully with the team, he's available soon', but I know you guys need to ask questions of course.
With Archie, you tried to sign him at Brentford, didn't you? Can you just explain how close you were and what you liked about him last season?
I think what I like about Archie I think he's very good on the ball. I like he plays with his head up so he can play short. He can drive the ball. The pass to Pedro for the penalty against Slavia was an excellent pass. Perfectly weighted. Playing it behind. Great capacity to cover the pitch. Good pressing skills, and I think he's young but he has a very good character. I think he could be a leader in the future.
As a manager, how long does it take sometimes to just get buy-in from the players that they're being taught a new philosophy a new way of playing and has that been sort of shadowed in the form really in November it was a bit patchy and now you've started December really well?
Yeah, I think it's you know I think there's a lot of things also when you play a lot of games and you need to rotate and you try to find your team and all that so it's not only about what I want. There's also a lot of circumstances that make it a little bit more tricky to make sure we're going to be or we want to be as quick as possible. But I experienced a buy-in straight from the off.
I think the PSG game where we played one system three days later another system against Burnley was two good signs of what they are willing to go all in. City a little bit after then we had let's say some results that didn't go our way and now it's positive that's all part of the journey.
Going forward there will hopefully be even longer spells of good performances and wins but there will still also be some downs and we need to get through that.
So I think the only way to get closer and closer to each other is time and working on relationships and working on understanding each other's ideas. That's the biggest thing. And then it is how we together handle the bad spells because there will be bad spells how do we handle them?
