Thomas Frank spoke to the media alongside Wilson Odobert at Parc des Princes on Tuesday evening ahead of our UEFA Champions League league phase MD5 against holders PSG on Wednesday night (8pm UK).
Here's what Thomas had to say...
Can we start off with team news?
Thomas: "Good evening, everyone is available after Arsenal."
After the nature of the approach against Arsenal, is it vital that you show some attacking intent tomorrow night?
Thomas: "I think the performance is always the most important thing, because if you do that on a consistent basis you have a bigger chance of getting results. I watched the game back, that was a hard watch. We were not good, bad performance, not running away from that in any way. The biggest thing was that there was plenty of intent and what we wanted to do, but we just couldn't execute it on the day. The biggest thing for me, the most disappointing thing, was that we were not able to compete and I was convinced that we could compete on the day. That didn't happen. We had 53 situations where it was like a dual, a second ball situation where Arsenal went long, we went long, like in a normal football game. We came out on top in 17 of those and lost 36. If you don't do that, that is the basic, then it's very difficult to win a football match. Tomorrow we are facing another of the best teams in Europe away from home. It's a nice challenge that we 100% opt for and I'm convinced we'll bounce back with a good performance."
You were visibly angry at the Emirates and seem pretty annoyed still by the performance - have you seen the same anger from the players?
Thomas: "Yeah, no doubt. I think it's been two good days with talks and meetings. A meeting yesterday of course, a main meeting, and a meeting today, a main meeting mainly about us - how we improve, how we go forward, because in football there are setbacks and it was a setback on Sunday. It's all about how you react because one thing for sure, you're not going through life without setbacks, you're not going throughout the football season without setbacks. It's how you react to it."
Randal Kolo Muani is eligible to face his parent club. He's had a stop-start start to life at Tottenham, mainly due to injury. How frustrated has he been? How desperate is he to make a big impact at Spurs?
Thomas: "Of course he wants to perform, every player wants to perform and show their best, no doubt about that. He came, very happy to join Tottenham and perform for us and we were very happy to have him. Then he got a dead leg that took longer than we thought it would do. Then he got the broken jaw, so it’s been a bit stop-start. Plus he came and was not fully fit, he was fit, but he was not top fit because he came from a pre-season where he has been playing a little bit of catch-up. I am convinced you'll see more and more good stuff from him."
How have you tries to reset the squad?
Thomas: "When you have tough defeats, and tough defeats can be two different things, but especially if you don't hit a top performance, if you hit a bad performance, that's where I need a bit deeper analysis and talk about a bit of a reset, but definitely a bounce back. As I said from the beginning when I came in, we are in a fantastic four-game spell, if you can say that. Four games in 10 days - Arsenal away, PSG away, Fulham home and Newcastle away. Three very difficult away grounds and a difficult game against Fulham. Two of the best teams in Europe in three days. That's the challenge we want. That's the challenge we want to embrace, and on the way to be very competitive, there will be ups and there will be downs. It's how we react to it, how we learn from it. The players will learn from it, I will learn from it and we'll move forward from here."
After the fall out from playing a back five at Arsenal, would you have any hesitation about playing that back five again, as you did in the UEFA Super Cup?
Thomas: "The beauty of the first part of your question is good, because all the fall out there - I don't read anything, no articles, no social media, so I don't know if there was a fall out. Of course, my good friend here to my right said there could come a question about that. We'll go back to the first question, the thing was with we didn't win enough of these duels. We were not aggressive enough. We were not going forward enough and playing forward enough. If you play 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, 7-9-13, it doesn't matter. If you're not doing that, I'm not in doubt about it."
You had a good start - the performance against PSG, the win at City but it's now three wins in 11 - why do you think things have started to unravel a little? How confident are you of getting this project back on track?
Thomas: "That's a good question. I think there will always be a little, how can you say, the performance is a little bit up and down. If we play 60 games in a season, there will be maybe 10 to 12 perfect games. Then there will be 30 average plus games, some average and some below that. It's about being consistent enough and perform at a high enough level and be competitive in the games. I think we accept some games because one thing is defeat. Except for the Arsenal game, I think the other games we've been competitive in. It's about that - keep doing everything we can to be better and better, to create enough chances to win the football matches. We have still scored quite a few goals. My teams have always scored goals. So, we'll keep working hard on it."
You've got this great mantra, if you don't take risks, you aren't taking risks. Does it frustrate you or maybe hurt you when people claim that this team of yours isn't taking risks?
Thomas: "If they don't think we do... I think we do. Maybe we should do more. I think it's fair to ask the question We're not creating enough chances, which is reality. It's my job to do everything to make sure that we do what we can to create more and more chances, be better and better at it. That's what we work very hard on every day, to find the right formula for that. That's part of the play, but part of it is also how aggressive we are under pressure, how we can win it, half-transitions, full-transitions. I think it's also fair to say that three of Arsenal's goals were half-transitions and transitions. That's where we need to be good as well, in those situations."
What does Randal Kolo Muani offer that's different to the other forwards you have?
Thomas: "I like his link up play. I think he's very good at that. I think his ability to run in behind and also his ability to go one-vs-one. I think he's very good in those situations. I think that's probably the little difference. He's also good in the box."
You mentioned the 53 duals - when you're analysing them, was there a particular reason why you lost 36 of them or a particular pattern emerging?
Thomas: "It was very simple. We were not aggressive enough, in my opinion, when we pushed forward. We were not securing the ball well enough. It's also part of that. We were not landing in the right areas for where the second ball landed and stuff like that. That was the main thing."
How important do you think it is that they (the club) stick with you and have some continuity?
Thomas: "Very important! Part of taking this job was to sit here and have the challenges. Of course, I would love to sit here and we're beating Arsenal and then face Paris tomorrow night. We lost badly. Part of that is to manage those setbacks and learn from it and move on from here. One thing I'm 1,000% sure of, I know how to build a team. I know how to build a club. We will do that. Along the way, we will learn. The big thing is how we learn from the bad spells. When we go 1-0 down, how do we react as a team? The best teams just continue to move on. They still run hard. They still do the same thing. No doubts in that. The first four months, I learned a lot about the team. I learned a lot about the individual players. All that learning needs to materialise to how we find the right formula with the right players on the pitch and also with some players coming back. Then we play every third day. That's the big challenge, but that's what I embrace."
When you say you know how to build a club, I guess that's time, isn't it? It's players getting used to your methods?
Thomas: "Yeah, of course. Enrique here at PSG, this is his third season. He also had to take a lot of battles. Those years also turned everything around from playing with the biggest players in Europe to less stars, very determined players that play for the team. He created one of the best teams in the world by making those changes. Even last year, it was the beauty of football. A fantastic season, winning the treble. They were close to getting knocked out of the Champions League. It's margins sometimes."
How much work have you invested in changing the team from the way you played last season? When you went to Brentford and you came up, you said that you started by making sure they were solid at the back. Has the same operation started the same way at Spurs, I suppose?
Thomas: "I think that was the, how can I say, for me the biggest thing to focus on. Again, no team will win anything if they can't defend. If you look at the team that is on top of the table, no matter how hard and how tough it is to name Arsenal, as a Tottenham head coach, they defend very well. Liverpool when they won, they defend very well. City when they won, they defend very well. So that's part of it. Then we hope we can keep up creating chances that we struggle a little bit with, so we need to look into that as well. But defence is part of it, it's just very important."
How conscious are you of the way that the fans at Spurs demand that you play, and how realistically does it take to put something a bit more adventurous on top of being solid at the back?
Thomas: "I hope it will not take that long time, but I think it's fair to say, I think the young man next to me (Wilson) who actually goes through it, I think he's a fantastic player, I think he's got a huge potential. I also think he, compared to last season, really taking a step up and I have a big hope for Wilson. But he's still taking over from a top player in Sonny, for example, who played last year, and Maddison and Solanke and Kulusevski, who was the main guy. That's not to say that Wilson, Brennan, Mo, Xavi, Matty, Richy, whatever, they can't do it. It just takes a little bit of time in that. And then the next bit, we have to play every third day in Premier League and in Champions League. It's not complaint, it's just the way it is. It just makes it a little bit more complicated."
