Thomas Frank has revealed why he is convinced Tottenham are moving in the right direction despite the team’s poor results over the last few months.
Over the last week, reports have been doing the rounds that Spurs are identifying potential replacements for Frank on the back of the Lilywhites’ continued struggles in the Premier League.
Tottenham’s win at Selhurst Park on Sunday was thus a huge result for the Dane and temporarily lifts some of the pressure that was building on him.
Frank admitted that he was delighted with the resilience his players showed against Crystal Palace, and he has now explained why the Lilywhites are moving in the right direction.
Thomas Frank defends Tottenham’s recent form
Over recent weeks, the Spurs boss has been bullish that he is the right man to make the club competitive, and he has now insisted that the team’s recent form has not been as bad as the results suggest.
The Tottenham boss claimed that his players have not delivered two poor performances in a row, even though they have not always got the results that their displays have deserved.
When asked if his main challenge is to show enough in the short-term to get an opportunity to build something over the long-term, the Dane told Sky Sports: “Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think it doesn’t work if you say, ‘Ah, the pros are, by the way, are so good. We have so many nice underlying performance indicators, but by the way, we lost 15 games in a row’. It doesn’t work like that, so we need to win, and we need to win, hopefully, a lot of football matches.
“But what I like is that we haven’t had two bad performances in a row. Maybe we lost two games in a row, but not two bad performances. I think it’s a big difference. We performed terribly against Arsenal, which is very bad. But we put in a very good performance against PSG, for example.
“As an example, bad performance against Nottingham Forest, but a good performance against Liverpool. I know we lost it, but that’s what you need to look at. And that’s a good indicator of how we bounce back, how we work with the players and the team. And I think that’s a sign of something going in the right direction.”
Frank says three Tottenham players have never looked better
The 52-year-old insists that he is seeing a big improvement in intangibles such as attitude and togetherness, but confessed that the Lilywhites also need to add quality to the squad.
Frank also suggested that several Spurs players are now playing their best football for the club.
When asked how Tottenham can take the next step in 2026, Frank responded: “I think working very hard on that competitive culture every day, the small bits with the players, all the good habits – let’s say winning habits – where we work very hard, where we have that attitude, comfortable, humble, where we use our togetherness to really work as a team and the passion to want to get better.
“So the path, as I say it, I think that’s a big thing we work on very, very hard. And if we do that well, then I know we’ll be more and more consistent. The challenge is we are playing a lot of games, and we’re playing every three or four days, so that’s a challenge.
“And then it also holds two transfer windows, which is also important. I said many times, I’m very happy with my squad. I’m very happy with the players, but I also think it’s fair to say that we also need, over time, to do what we can to strengthen the squad.
“I think Micky van de Ven has almost never looked better. Consistent, been available for every minute. Cuti [Cristian Romero] the same. Richarlison, the same. So that’s three players who hadn’t been as consistent in the last two or three years, so I think that’s a massive win, but it’s just a small story because we’re not winning enough football matches. So all those small stories we need to add up and then make sure we can be competitive.”