Thomas Frank reveals what pleased him most about Tottenham’s performance against PSG
Thomas Frank has said that he is proud of the display that his Tottenham side delivered against the European champions and revealed a couple of aspects which pleased him the most about his players.
Predictably, the fans of rival clubs are now laughing at Tottenham for “bottling” the UEFA Super Cup final, but before the game, not many of them gave the Lilywhites a shot at even competing against last season’s Champions League winners.
Spurs surprised everyone with how much defensive control they had of the game, with PSG struggling to even muster shots on target until the dying stages of the encounter.
That performance makes the result even more disappointing for Tottenham fans, but Frank is upbeat heading into the new season after what he saw from his side in Udine.
Thomas Frank is very proud of his Tottenham players
The Dane pulled a surprise out of the bag by starting with a back five, and his tactical plans worked for 85 minutes, with the Ligue 1 side unable to break their opponents down.
Even though Tottenham may have conceded two late goals and lost on penalties, the Spurs head coach insisted that he is ‘very, very proud’ of the efforts that his players delivered.
When asked if he is happy to see his players leave everything out on the pitch, Thomas Frank said (via Football.London): “I absolutely agree, very, very proud of the players, the team, the club, the fans. I think the players gave everything, playing against one of the best teams in the world, maybe the best, at the moment.
“I think we were 75, 80 minutes perfect, almost giving nothing away against. They had four players with unbelievable individual quality on the pitch. So very, very proud of them.”
Frank reveals two aspects of Spurs performance which delighted him
The Tottenham boss admitted that he was impressed with the mentality that his players showed throughout the game, even though they might have let the result slip in the end.
He also confessed that he was delighted by how threatening Spurs looked in set pieces, revealing that it had been identified as an area where they could hurt their opponents.
Frank added: “I think if you play 2-2 against PSG, you take that. I think that single result is good. Then you have a penalty shootout that we lost – maybe we need to work on penalties. Maybe that’s the thing to win a final.
“I think if everyone said this would be a draw and we’d do some penalties, everyone would think ‘oh that’s quite impressive’. Then if you look into the performance we actually put in and the shift we put in – wow, wow, what a mentality throughout the game. A lot of things to be happy with.”
When asked if this is the standard that he wants his side to maintain over the coming season, the former Brentford boss responded: “Hopefully, the intensity and aggressivity, in the pressure and in the defending and the foundation and a mentality to run hard, that needs to be the foundation every single time, and sometimes you succeed very well, other times we need to do a little bit better and I think that was good.
“I think another thing that was very positive was the set pieces. Obviously, we knew that was an area where we can hurt PSG and we worked very hard on it. So a big credit to the players, and almost gave us a win.”
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