‘Arsenal are a little bit ahead of us’ – Thomas Frank on Tottenham’s north London rivals | OneFootball

Tottenham boss Thomas Frank says he is aware that Arsenal are ahead of Spurs at this current moment.

Frank took over Tottenham this summer whilst Mikel Arteta joined Arsenal in December of 2019, and the Dane admitted that Arteta’s side are further along in areas such as squad depth and quality.

Asked if he was jealous of Arsenal’s squad depth, Frank said: “I’ve said before, I’m happy with my squad. I think it’s two clubs on two different journeys. I hate to say it, but they’re a little bit ahead of us. But we know that.

“But in one game, I’m 100% sure we’ll be very competitive. And of course we can win on Sunday. And then of course we know in general squad depth is good and important. But I’m not really looking at other teams. I’m just looking at my team.”

Arsenal are currently top of the Premier League and score a lot of goals through set pieces, 10 this season, to be exact. Frank’s Spurs side are also strong on set pieces though, and have scored six through them this term.

And Frank has partly attributed the rise in importance placed on set pieces across the league on his time at Brentford.

“I’m pretty sure that the bits we did at Brentford inspired a lot of clubs to focus even more on set pieces. And it is quite interesting that this year I go from Brentford to Tottenham, and there is a spike in focus on set pieces for all the teams, like even more. Especially in the long throws. It’s crazy. 

“It seems like everyone is very, very focused (on set pieces), which we should be. It’s a third of our goals. So why not be very good in that phase and very good in high pressure? We need to be good in many phases.”

Frank has often been very complimentary of Tottenham’s north London rivals, and was hesitant to dish out more praise.

But asked whether Arsenal are better this season than they were last, he said: “I don’t want to praise them too much, Arsenal in general. But also we can’t hide or look away from that. Right now they’re at the top of the table in the Premier League.

“And I think they invested a lot in the squad also in the summer and over the last couple of years. So they have a very strong competitive squad with almost two good players in every position.”