Thomas Frank has spoken about Dominic Solanke’s importance to Tottenham, as well as the striker’s controversial first goal against Manchester City.
In what was just his second start of the season, Solanke showed Tottenham exactly what they have been missing all season, proving a handful to the Man City defence and netting both of the Lilywhites’ goals.
Solanke has confessed that the last six months have been the hardest moments of his career, and the England international is evidently keen to make up for lost time.
The 28-year-old’s second goal will go down as one of the goals of the season, but the worrying thing for Spurs fans is that the striker was forced off with a knock to his ankle late on.
Thomas Frank makes an admission about Dominic Solanke’s importance for Tottenham
The Tottenham boss admitted that the England international is not yet at 100 per cent but confessed that he had no choice but to rely on him to play as many minutes as possible against City.
He compared Solanke’s importance to Spurs to Erling Haaland’s importance to Pep Guardiola’s side, admitting that the North Londoners have desperately missed the centre-forward.
When asked about Solanke’s impact and if the striker is okay after rolling his ankle late on, Frank told Football.London: “That I don’t know. The last bit I don’t know. But he clearly also struggled to run. So he knew, he struggled to run fitness-wise. We knew before the game that again it would be a big push to play 90.
“He’s not there fitness-wise where he should be, because he’s been out for so long. And we’ve been, in a way, a little bit forced to play him. And I think it’s pretty evident that he’s relatively important for us.
“Four goals in four games, with him being on his 70-80% of fitness and top sharpness. But imagine City playing without Haaland for six months. So I think we’ve been quite hard-hit with injuries. Yeah, in general, but Dom was excellent.”
Frank insists Solanke’s first goal was a fair one
While Solanke’s second goal has understandably dominated the headlines, there was some controversy with his first goal, with Guardiola insisting it must have been ruled out for a foul on Marc Guehi (Guardian).
However, Frank believes that the Tottenham striker did not make enough contact with Guehi to warrant a foul.
When asked about Solanke’s and his side’s first goal, the Dane said: “Yeah, first one, I think there’s clear contact from him on it. We want, in general, a higher threshold. I understand it’s in the grey area. I think if the Liverpool goal, Ekitike, was in my opinion still, two clear hands in the back of Romero.
“So I think it’s no grey areas. Very happy it finally dropped to us, which I think was more than fair. And the second one was something we, of course, trained yesterday, so it went well.”