Thomas Frank has made an interesting observation about Tottenham Hotspur’s home form after their latest loss against Aston Villa.
Ahead of Sunday’s clash, Frank admitted that Spurs needed to improve their results at home, but his players once again failed to produce the goods in front of their supporters.
The evening started perfectly for the Lilywhites, with Rodrigo Bentancur putting them 1-0 up in the fifth minute, but the home side struggled to convert their dominance into clear-cut chances.
They were punished as Villa scored with two brilliant strikes, one from Morgan Rogers in the first-half and the other from substitute Emi Buendia, thus managing to steal all the points.
Thomas Frank reflects on Tottenham’s performances at home
After this loss, Spurs have only got four points at home out of a possible 12, which is in sharp contrast to their away form, where they have won three and drawn one.
While Frank acknowledged that Tottenham have to improve at home, he insisted that it was more about assessing the performances than the results, suggesting that his side has played better at home than their record suggests.
However, fans may be worried that Frank insisted Tottenham ‘performed well’ against Villa, despite conceding two and struggling to create chances of their own.
When asked if he could explain why Spurs cannot win at home, Frank responded (via the club’s official website): “I hope I can. Maybe I don’t think it’s that simple. I think it’s about looking into the performances.
“I think we performed well against Burnley, I think we performed well again today. I think we had one very good first half against Wolves and then we had a bad game against Bournemouth.
“So, that’s probably the reason I think it’s a game that is a draw, a clear draw and we could easily have won it instead of Villa and then it would have been a different narrative. So, I look at the performance on the pitch, we did well, and look at the bits we need to improve.”
Spurs can take positives from the performance against Aston Villa
One can certainly understand why Tottenham fans are concerned about the team’s inability to create chances at home.
However, these performances have to be judged in a broader context of what is an extremely tight Premier League campaign, with all sides being very difficult to break down.
Man City struggled to break down Everton for the majority of the game despite winning 2-0 on Saturday, while Liverpool also lost at home this weekend.
The days of expecting home sides to dominate the opposition and pepper the goal with shot after shot are well and truly over in the Premier League, as most teams have strong squads and are well coached.
Villa are a very well-drilled side, who were restricted to barely any chances by Tottenham, and Frank is right in saying that on another day, the Lilywhites could have won the game.