Thomas Frank has admitted he is not enjoying his job at Tottenham. The head coach is dealing with numerous problems as he navigates what always stood to be a transitional season, the most insistent being his team\u2019s lack of creativity.<\/p>\n
Spurs were booed off after Thursday\u2019s 0-0 draw at Brentford<\/a> by the travelling support, who also chanted \u201cboring, boring Tottenham\u201d. But Frank is confident he will come to look back on the first half of his debut campaign more fondly once \u2013 and not if \u2013 his squad emerges on the other side, stronger and wiser for the suffering. Tottenham are 12th in the Premier League \u2013 their next game is at home to Sunderland on Sunday and Frank leant into a marathon-running analogy when he was asked whether he was enjoying the challenge to which he has signed up.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you need to put in a big, big shift and it\u2019s not smooth and it\u2019s tough, it\u2019s probably difficult to enjoy it,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I run hard I don\u2019t enjoy that moment but I know I need to keep my head down and run hard to get through it. We are in a situation where you need to run hard, to stay in it. When we look back on this spell or maybe this first year when it was tough, you\u2019ll think: \u2018What a learning, what an experience, it made us so much better for the future.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cSo the short answer is: no [he is not enjoying his job]. The reality is you can\u2019t. But when I put myself out of it and look down, I think: \u2018What a privilege to be in charge of this fantastic club in a period where it\u2019s a big transition.\u2019 It\u2019s definitely a marathon and it definitely seems like it\u2019s one of the more heavy miles I\u2019m on now, but head down and keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n Frank repeated himself about the issues at the club, with injuries prominent among them, especially to attacking players. He has been deprived of Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison all season and Dominic Solanke for all but the first three games. Solanke has now returned to training. \u201cWhen I walked in the door I didn\u2019t expect Solanke and Maddison to be out for seven months, or for Kulusevski not to be ready,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Frank\u2019s comment about Kulusevski was interesting given it was reported on 21 August that the player would be out until around the turn of the year<\/a>. In other words, he ought to be back about now, at least to training. Kulusevski is not yet in training. Xavi Simons will also miss the Sunderland game as he completes a three-match ban while Lucas Bergvall is an injury doubt.<\/p>\n Tottenham\u2019s travails at home in the league have been well-documented. Ditto the strain placed on the squad by their involvement in the Champions League. Ditto the unprecedented number of changes at executive level, the most notable being the departure of Daniel Levy. There is expected to be another one with the co-sporting director, Fabio Paratici, heavily linked with a move to Fiorentina. It raised a few eyebrows when the winger, Manor Solomon, cut short his loan at Villarreal this week to switch to Fiorentina, also on loan.<\/p>\n Fabio Paratici (left) in the stands with the Tottenham chief executive, Vinai Venkatesham, at Crystal Palace on 28 December. Photograph: Javier Garc\u00eda\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Frank was asked who Paratici was working for. \u201cGood question, maybe you know,\u201d he said with a smile before re-joining the party line. \u201cFabio is Tottenham sporting director. I spoke to him twice yesterday. He is working very hard for Tottenham.\u201d<\/p>\n Frank knows endlessly listing the club\u2019s problems is tedious. \u201cThis is where we are right now,\u201d he insisted. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunately very boring but that\u2019s the fact.\u201d What Frank made clear was that this was a time for Spurs to hold their nerve \u2013 in terms of the overall situation and, more specifically, the January transfer window where the pressure for additions has been increased by the \u00a335m sale of Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace<\/a>. Tottenham have also loaned defender Kota Takai, who joined them last summer for \u00a35m from Kawasaki Frontale, to Borussia M\u00f6nchengladbach for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n Frank\u2019s message is that only players who will help the club towards the long-term goal of challenging for silverware will be considered. He is not interested in buying himself time and credit with signings who would only provide a short-term boost. \u201cWe will do everything we can to improve the squad,\u201d he said. \u201cBut short-term impact can\u2019t limit long-term success. The flip-side is that if we can do something that will really improve us, we should go very hard for that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have lists of players in every position. Is No 6 [on the list] good enough for us to get to where we want to be in the future? Probably not. But it\u2019s a fine balance.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes you need to take some steps forward before we can get the perfect solution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Frank has admitted he is not enjoying his job at Tottenham. The head coach is dealing with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-388884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}