Thomas Frank has opened up about what he thinks of Tottenham’s failure to get some deals over the line, and the Dane has also shared whether he expects this transfer window to be as complicated as it has proven to be for the Lilywhites.
The two senior players that Tottenham have added to their squad this summer – Mohammed Kudus and Joao Palhinha – have both done exceptionally well so far.
That perhaps makes Spurs fans wonder just how good the side would have looked if Tottenham had been able to deliver Frank’s top targets.
It was well publicised that Tottenham failed to land Morgan Gibbs-Whtie this summer despite activating his release clause.
What hurt even more for Spurs fans was to see Arsenal hijack Tottenham’s move for Eberechi Eze, which has left the Danish coach without a recognised number ten, given that James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski are still on the treatment table.
Thomas Frank defends the Tottenham hierarchy’s summer business
This is not the first time Daniel Levy and Spurs have failed to get some high-profile deals over the line, with the Lilywhites having missed out on several big names over the years due to their lack of urgency in negotiating deals.
However, Frank insists that the club’s hierarchy are working hard on delivering the right signings, with the Tottenham boss pointing out that transfers are not as simple as they appear.
When asked about Tottenham’s poor record of getting deals over the line, Thomas Frank responded (via Football.London): “I would say first, I don’t know the history. Of course, I’m reading a little bit, and I’ve been briefed pretty well about the story that may have been something, but I can’t really look too much into that. What is happening with potential transfers or not potential transfers or rumours or not rumours, that of course, either way, I will keep for myself.
“What I can see is that we are working very hard. Also, what I know is that it’s not that easy, in general, when you want to sign a player. I can speak from experience in Brentford, I can speak about that, where we also wanted to sign players. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes we didn’t. There are a lot of moving parts. There are the players, the families, the agents, and there’s the club that wants to sell. So in general terms, it makes it complicated.”
Frank reveals what he expected at Spurs compared to Brentford
Given where Spurs sit in the food chain compared to Brentford, Frank may have expected it to be easier to get his top targets through the door at N17, but that has not happened so far.
However, the 51-year-old insists that he certainly did not expect transfers to be easy to complete, even though he has more resources to work with at Tottenham
When asked if he expected signing players to be an easier ordeal at Tottenham than at Brentford, the Dane responded: “If I’m honest, no. It’s the same problems, you just have a few more quid to spend. Same problems, same challenges, it’s just a different bracket.
“It’s not too different [in the processes]. The big thing I don’t know here and I didn’t know at Brentford, what was actually happening when they were negotiating. So that’s the same in both places you don’t know anything about unless you’re sitting in that room.
“I only did that once, a very good story, at Brentford….and that is for another time over a beer when there are no cameras. But it’s very good! Both places have good processes. Both places have good recruitment strategies.
“We all can see what Johan [Lange] and Rob [Mackenzie] have done here at Tottenham. There’s a lot of similarities to what Lee [Dykes] and his team did at Brentford, and then the working process in terms of how we decide players is good. We need there to be cooperation between the key stakeholders and then we need to take good decisions.”
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