{"id":458552,"date":"2026-02-09T17:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/458552\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:40:08","slug":"thomas-frank-tottenham-desperate-for-a-win-amid-horror-premier-league-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/458552\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Frank: Tottenham &#8216;desperate&#8217; for a win amid horror Premier League run"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas Frank has acknowledged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/team\/_\/id\/367\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tottenham<\/a> are &#8220;desperate&#8221; to win at home to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/team\/_\/id\/361\/newcastle-united\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Newcastle<\/a> on Tuesday, but conceded he does not know if <a data-player-guid=\"7dcf567a-7e7a-5125-93b4-ae8cab6ccec4\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/272695\/dejan-kulusevski\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dejan Kulusevski<\/a> will play this season.<\/p>\n<p>Spurs go into the midweek fixture down in 15th and only six points above the bottom three after a run of two wins in 16 <a data-league-guid=\"6949f3af-300c-35f1-beab-b95669eedd38\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/ENG.1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Premier League<\/a> matches.<\/p>\n<p>Frank was repeatedly asked about relegation on Monday and while he refused to detail if Tottenham were embroiled in a survival battle, he admitted they are eager to claim a first domestic win of 2026.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is no doubt we are desperate to win games. Desperate,&#8221; Frank insisted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And I am focusing on Newcastle tomorrow. That is a great opportunity ahead of us against a good team. That is the main thing &#8212; can we go out there and get three points tomorrow, that will be very good and climb from there and look forward.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Tottenham are in danger of being dragged into a relegation battle this season.\u00a0Vince Mignott\/MB Media\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Spurs will be without several players, including Kulusevski, who has not played since May after a serious knee injury.<\/p>\n<p>Kulusevski recently had an injection to help him deal with pain in his knee but after being left out of Tottenham&#8217;s Champions League squad for the knock-out phase, Frank could not provide a positive update on the Swedish playmaker.<\/p>\n<p>Asked if Kulusevski will be able to feature this season, Frank conceded: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Deki has got another appointment at the end of this week where we will know more, but of course if he&#8217;s out of the Champions League squad, it&#8217;s a sign it is not tomorrow.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Left-back <a data-player-guid=\"422755d2-ee37-bf40-3f2d-02c85fcfc4fb\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/290076\/destiny-udogie\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Destiny Udogie<\/a> was the latest to join the injured list on Saturday after he sustained a hamstring injury during the 2-0 loss at <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"6ebc2fd0-35d3-733b-5666-b75035a3bce9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=360\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unfortunately Destiny has a hamstring injury, so he is out for the next four to five weeks,&#8221; Frank revealed.<\/p>\n<p><a data-player-guid=\"68b803ee-5842-c7e3-edb1-644e9398e648\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/267711\/djed-spence\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Djed Spence<\/a> is back in a timely boost, but captain <a data-player-guid=\"fad21314-b671-1f35-3c4c-1cb3dff354ad\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/96970\/cristian-romero\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cristian Romero<\/a> begins a four-match suspension for his red card at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we spoke enough about Romero at the last press conference,&#8221; Frank said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/story?_slug_=wayne-rooney-tottenham-relegation-battle-premier-league-current-form&amp;id=47874968\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Wayne Rooney: Tottenham are in a relegation battle<\/a><br \/>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/story?_slug_=cristian-romero-apologised-tottenham-teammates-red-card-man-united-thomas-frank&amp;id=47856623\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Frank: No plans to strip Cristian Romero of captaincy after red<\/a><br \/>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/football\/report?gameId=740843\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Man United beat 10-man Tottenham for fourth straight win<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a young leader, so he&#8217;s learning every day. I&#8217;ll use the example, I remember when I was 30 years old, I thought I was on top of the world. I was nowhere near the level I am today in terms of leadership and understanding things.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And then when you have a player that is playing with so much passion and aggressivity, then sometimes things like that can happen. That&#8217;s not to say that he shouldn&#8217;t learn from it. Of course, he needs to learn from it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Frank also issued a rallying cry to disgruntled Tottenham fans ahead of a crunch fixture for both clubs, with Newcastle only able to win one of their last eight matches.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can say we desperately need them,&#8221; Frank added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course, when you&#8217;re a little bit down to the bare bone, not that many players, it&#8217;s not that straightforward, it&#8217;s maybe not as confident the team and all that, then we need to push together.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Frank has acknowledged Tottenham are &#8220;desperate&#8221; to win at home to Newcastle on Tuesday, but conceded he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-458552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}