Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n
Your support makes all the difference.Read more<\/p>\n
Under-fire Tottenham boss Thomas Frank<\/a> was left \u201churt\u201d by their FA Cup exit to Aston Villa<\/a>, but defended his passionate players after a full-time melee and criticised Ollie Watkins<\/a>.<\/p>\n A spirited second-half rally could not prevent Spurs suffering another early exit in a domestic cup to increase the pressure on Frank, who has lost seven of his last 13 matches after this 2-1 defeat.<\/p>\n Frank had endured a nightmare week after he inadvertently used a coffee cup with the logo of Spurs\u2019 rivals Arsenal<\/a> on before a 3-2 loss at Bournemouth<\/a> on Wednesday, and first-half goals by Villa duo Emiliano Buendia and Morgan Rogers denied him a much-needed cup run.<\/p>\n Wilson Odobert reduced the deficit in the 55th minute and Spurs created further second-half chances, but they ultimately lost again to spark more boos for Frank with Villa\u2019s away support poking fun at the Danish coach with chants about him being an Arsenal fan.<\/p>\n Tempers spilled over at full-time after Frank\u2019s old Brentford forward Watkins celebrated in front of Palhinha, who went on to clash with Morgan Rogers and Ezri Konsa as players from both teams piled in to produce ugly scenes, but Villa progress.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are all hurt. There is nothing we want to do more than to get through to the next round no matter who we face. We play at home, we had a good opportunity and unfortunately we couldn\u2019t go through,\u201d Frank said.<\/p>\n Quizzed on if his players were losing control after they clashed with Tottenham fans away to Bournemouth, Frank said: \u201cI don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess you have seen the situation through? I just saw it to be sure I saw what I saw. Of course it\u2019s all about keeping a cool head.<\/p>\n \u201cThe players gave everything, everything out there, (but) losing a tight game, season not going perfect and I think Ollie is very provoking.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way he is going down to celebrate in front of the Villa fans and he is walking into Joao, he can just easily walk around. I think everyone that has been in a competitive nature, that is difficult and can trigger things.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to play with passion and when you play with passion then sometimes you play to the line and sometimes a little bit borderline.<\/p>\n \u201cI see players with big passion that want to do very well for the club.\u201d<\/p>\n Unai Emery made six changes after a gruelling schedule for Villa, but they sealed a 13th win in 15 matches.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter 90 minutes, with our momentum, with their momentum, I think we deserved to win,\u201d Emery saidbefore he decided to praise referee Craig Pawson.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course we must respect the referee, we must respect the competition. Only we were a little bit angry because (Boubacar) Kamara was getting injured with one action with Palhinha, but I think the referee today did a fantastic job.<\/p>\n \u201cSome moments happened, with some players, and I think we can understand in the circumstances it happens on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-363809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}