FOOTBALL: Premier League: Tottenham post-match reaction (Frank)

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Tottenham head coach Thomas Frank reflects on his side's 2-0 win away to Manchester City in the Premier League

Transcript

00:00Congratulations. Another clean sheet, another three points. You must be delighted.

00:19Thank you. Yeah, very delighted. Extremely proud of the players' performance. I think it was exceptionally good performance.

00:30And I think the first 35 minutes, we know a couple of things. We know it's always difficult to play against City.

00:35He had Etihad, even more difficult. The first 35 minutes, I thought, was fairly even.

00:42But with City on top, I think they were more on top than us.

00:47Big mentality shift in terms of staying in the game and keep doing what we wanted to do.

00:53Scoring a great goal. Maybe that changed a little bit of momentum, but we definitely stayed on top.

00:59Going 2-0. Second half, I think we were very good.

01:03And the big spell where we could think that they would put pressure on us,

01:07I think we were very aggressive in the high pressure.

01:10I thought that we were very front-footed with the mindset to constantly go for the 3-0 goal.

01:15And then I must say that the clean sheet makes me very happy.

01:23It's a big thing we've been working on.

01:26Not on clean sheets. That's easier said than done.

01:29But on the defensive side of the game, high pressure, middle block, low block, defender box,

01:34mentality, blocking shots, everything.

01:36Because if you get clean sheets, you're closer to win a game.

01:40And also last year we had six clean sheets.

01:43So that's very big for me.

01:46So many good individual performances, of course.

01:48But you've got Jao Pelinha in.

01:50First goal for the club.

01:51How important is that kind of combination with Rodrigo Benteco?

01:53I think it's fair to say that we got a few questions about the transfer market yesterday.

02:01A lot about why not and what if and all that.

02:05But I'm 100% sure.

02:06We brought two top players into the club.

02:08Kudos and Pelinha.

02:09Both of them performed very well.

02:12Which I'm very pleased with.

02:13And Pelinha, wow.

02:15Sometimes players need confidence and they need to be on top.

02:21And I actually don't think he's fully fit yet where I want him to be.

02:27But I'm very pleased with his performance.

02:28And he's definitely helping the team.

02:32Obviously in the Super Cup you were 2-0 up and you played really well.

02:35But you couldn't get over the line that time.

02:36This time obviously felt very different.

02:39What were the lessons you took from the Super Cup and what was different today?

02:42I think...

02:44Yeah, good question.

02:47We of course referenced or referenced at halftime.

02:50When you're tired, keep going.

02:53That was one thing.

02:54Two, that we had to keep being brave on the ball.

02:57And three, we had to keep being good in the high pressure.

03:00Also that's easier said than done.

03:02But from every game you learn.

03:04From games where you don't get the result you want.

03:07You learn maybe even more.

03:12And then I think in some ways, of course, the other thing was a final.

03:15This was a way at Etihad.

03:16One of the most difficult places to go to.

03:20But the defensive principles are more and more.

03:23And then I think the mentality is the key thing.

03:25You need mentality to win games like this.

03:27You spoke yesterday about for each match how you sort of compile three key themes.

03:31Build your principles around that.

03:32What were the three key ones that you felt?

03:36Defensive side of the game.

03:39Be brave in phase one and two.

03:41And set pieces.

03:41I think that's very, very easy.

03:58Never, ever use one word about any player.

04:00It's not in our club.

04:03Thomas.

04:05I think it was one of your counterparts, Jürgen Klopp,

04:07that said something along the lines of

04:09there's no better playmaker in football

04:11than an effective press, essentially.

04:14What did you make of that statement?

04:15Who said that, sorry?

04:17Jürgen Klopp?

04:18Jürgen Klopp, yeah.

04:22That was a good, clever man, huh?

04:25I need to text him and say,

04:26hey, that's okay, clever.

04:28I definitely believe in the aggressive press,

04:35as you saw today,

04:37as you saw with my Brentford team.

04:39I believe in the high pressure.

04:40I believe in if we can be front-footed.

04:42I like that mentality.

04:43I think it's offensive.

04:45It's a more offensive way of defending.

04:47And then it's more fun to defend on the opponent's half.

04:51And, of course, today I think we were very successful.

04:54I also scored a goal from it.

04:55So, yeah, happy.

04:59I suppose Sarr as well,

05:01someone that's played in that number 10 position again today,

05:03moved back, I suppose, more to like an eight last week.

05:06But pushed into that position again today

05:08against PSG, a similar thing,

05:10so effective in that kind of pressing role.

05:12Yeah, definitely.

05:13And you can say there's a few things.

05:16It depends from game to game.

05:17Players in different positions, systems.

05:24But today he was very good, like the rest of the team.

05:26I think it was difficult to pick one player today.

05:28I think everyone performed fantastic.

05:31Hi, Thomas.

05:32For the first goal,

05:33you managed to beat the Man City offside trap.

05:35It seemed to cause a lot of uncertainty,

05:37putting the ball over the top.

05:39Is that something that you had pinpointed as to exploit?

05:43Yeah, we talk about the high line.

05:45And one thing is to talk about it and try to train it.

05:48It's never that easy.

05:50So, to be fair,

05:51I also think we ran into offside six times before that.

05:53So, of course, the goal looks very successful.

05:57And that's what we look at.

05:58But there's a few times where we didn't do it well enough.

06:01But yes, of course, we tried to look into it.

06:05Hi, Thomas.

06:05Hi.

06:06You went here a couple of years ago

06:07with an outstanding performance from your Brentford team.

06:10Was this performance even better,

06:11given that you've only just started to put your fingerprint on this first side?

06:16I think it's two different teams,

06:18two different contexts.

06:20But I think that both performances were top.

06:23And both performance,

06:25when I look back at and be very proud of it.

06:28Final question, please.

06:29Hi, Thomas.

06:31You referenced earlier that you had quite a lot of questions

06:32about the transfer market in the build-up to this game.

06:34But is the result of the performance a timely reminder

06:37that the success of a season, the success of a team,

06:39is not just about what you can do in a transfer market

06:41and the players you can bring in?

06:43Yeah, I think it's extremely important

06:45that a couple of things that we understand.

06:48We have a good group of players,

06:51talented group of players,

06:52a group of quality players that I'm very pleased with.

06:56So that's why we brought in two good players to help.

07:04Can we improve it?

07:05Perfect.

07:06If we can't,

07:07then we have a very good players.

07:09We just showed that today.

07:12So, yeah, very happy with that.

07:15Thank you, guys.

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