Thomas Frank makes admission about ‘fine balance’ of playing attacking football at Tottenham
Thomas Frank has reacted to the frustration of the Tottenham Hotspur fans surrounding his team’s style of defensive play.
Tottenham have posted some of the worst xG scores across the Premier League this season, and they are continuing to struggle to create chances consistently.
It was the same old story during their 0-0 draw at the Gtech Community Stadium on Thursday, with the game being devoid of chances for either side.
The team’s style of play is as far opposed to the club’s ‘To Dare is To Do’ motto as one can get, but Frank insisted that there are mitigating factors.
Thomas Frank says Tottenham have to prioritise defensive solidity first
The travelling Spurs fans to West London certainly made their feelings known after the final whistle, and the Tottenham boss admits that he is aware that the team needs to create more chances.
He confessed that his side made too many unforced errors in possession on Thursday and pointed out that they were without their most creative players.
When asked how conscious he is of wanting to be entertaining for the fans, Frank told Football.London: “Yeah, but I think there are two things in it. I think if you, as a team, are not strong defensively – that’s not the same as you can’t play offensive football – It’s just impossible to compete over a long season. Impossible. If you want to end in the nice, good position you’d like to end in.
“Then, of course, the offensive part of it, you need to open up enough and do that. I think we still do that. Then there’s another element, no matter what shape, offensive or defensive you are, you can’t make the amount of unforced errors we do today. For example, in our last game against Crystal Palace, that’s the bit we need to definitely see if we can improve.
“Then the next bit is you need to work on the offensive patterns and the structure and keep working very hard on that. Then the final bit is probably a little bit some key offensive players out for a game like this, for example. The ones we talked about a lot and then on top of that Xavi and Lucas. So probably that didn’t help as well.”
Frank explains why Spurs ‘cannot open up too much’
The 52-year-old conceded that his side are not clicking as they would want in attack at the moment.
He stressed that while they are working hard to fix that, it makes it even more important for the team to retain its defensive shape.
When asked if he is worried about losing the faith of the fans if the team does not play more offensive football, the Dane responded: “Of course, we need to play, it’s not that we don’t want to play offensive or attacking football.
“I just think when we’re not, how can you say, on the top of the game we would like to be, we work very, very hard on that, but while you work hard on that you can’t, if you struggle scoring goals, let’s say that, or create enough chances, you can’t open up too much because then you need to score too many goals. So it’s a fine balance.”
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