Thomas Frank says Spurs supporters cannot mock their own players as he sought to clarify the “true Tottenham fans” comment he made after the Fulham defeat.<\/p>\n
Spurs’ roller coaster year went from bad to worse on Saturday when two goals conceded in a shambolic opening six minutes of a 2-1 home loss to Fulham resulted in supporters turning on Frank’s team.<\/p>\n
Frustration boiled over with goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario booed for a terrible mistake before ironic cheers followed the next time the Italian successfully cleared the ball.<\/p>\n
Speaking post-match on Saturday, Frank said: “I didn’t like how the fans reacted to that. They booed at him straight after and also three or four times when he was on the ball. For me that is unacceptable.<\/p>\n
“They can’t be true Tottenham fans. Booing after (the game), fair. No problem, but when we are playing, we need to be together.”<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of Tuesday’s clash at Newcastle, Tottenham boss Frank said: “When I said the ‘not true Spurs fan’, what I meant by that, just to make it clear, was the mocking of one of their own players. (Vicario) makes a mistake and there is a little bit of booing after that, as I remember it.<\/p>\n
“The next ball he clears and there is like a cheering. You can’t do that. The opponent can do that. You can’t do that as a fan. That’s where I would stand by what I said.<\/p>\n
“The booing during the game I don’t think is helpful, (but) we are all different.”<\/p>\n
An inquest has followed after Spurs’ fourth home loss in the Premier League this season, and it emerged that the relationship with the fans was discussed after a 1-0 home defeat to Chelsea at the start of November.<\/p>\n
A tepid attacking display that contained only three shots in that London derby sparked fury during and after the match.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t have a meeting about the fans, we had a debrief after the game about the game, as we do all the time, and it was pretty evident after that game that it was the first time there was a little bit talk about the fans and the relationship,” Frank said.<\/p>\n
“It is important that we connect with the fans. It is pretty obvious that away from home we go to the away fans and thank them for their travelling and support.<\/p>\n
“There were maybe not many (players) who clapped after the (Fulham) game but I still saw a few.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes they can be emotional or whatever but I would still say ‘clap the fans after the game’, (but) you don’t have to do the big loop. There is no specific instruction, that is (just) what I recommend.”<\/p>\n
Asked if he was confident majority shareholders ENIC would give him time, Frank said: “Yeah, I’m very confident.<\/p>\n
“It seems like they’re good guys, intelligent people, know how to run businesses and learning about football.<\/p>\n
“I think when we’re dealing with intelligent people they can see every successful dynasty and every successful club has taken time.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Frank says Spurs supporters cannot mock their own players as he sought to clarify the “true Tottenham…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-170335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}