‘I know how to build a team’ – Frank responds to criticism following Arsenal annihilation | OneFootball

Thomas Frank vowed that he “knows how to build a club” amid criticism aimed at the Spurs boss following their dismal defeat to Arsenal.

Tottenham were beaten 4-1 by their north London rivals on Sunday and have won just two of the last eight games in all competitions.

They take on reigning Champions League winners PSG on Wednesday looking to bounce back and Frank says he and his side will learn from their recent setbacks.

“Part of taking this job was to sit here and face the challenges,” he said.

“Of course I would love to have sat here after beating Arsenal and face PSG tomorrow night. We lost, we lost badly, but part of that is to manage those setbacks and learn from it and move on from here.

“One thing I’m 1000% sure of is I know how to build a team, I know how to build a club, and we will do that.

“The big thing is how we learn from the bad spells, because that’s where we also can see, if we go 1-0 down, how we react as a team. The best teams continually move on, they still run hard and do the same things and there’s no doubts in that.

“The first four months, I’ve learnt a lot about the team, a lot about the individual players and all that learning needs to materialise to find the right formula with the right players on the pitch, and also with some players coming back.

“Then we play every third day but that’s the challenge. That’s what I will embrace.”

Frank also reiterated that his side’s shortcomings against Arsenal were around a lack of winning duels.

“I watched the game back, that was a hard watch,” Frank explained.

“We were not good, a bad performance. Not running away from that in any way.

“The biggest thing is that there was plenty of intent in what we wanted to do but we just couldn’t execute it on the day.

“The most disappointing thing for me was that we were not able to compete. I was convinced that we could compete on the day but that didn’t happen.

“There were 53 situations where it was a duel or second ball where Arsenal went long or we went long, like in a normal football game, and we came out on top in 17 of those and lost 36 so if you don’t do that, that is the basic, then it’s very difficult to win football matches.

“Tomorrow we are facing another of the best teams in Europe away from home so it’s a nice challenge that we’re 100% up for and can bounce back with a good performance.”

On the criticism of his tactics in the loss to Arsenal, Frank responded: “I don’t read anything, no articles, no social media, so I actually don’t know if there was a fallout. But of course my good friend to my right said there will maybe be a question about that.

“We didn’t win enough of these duels, we were not aggressive enough, not going forward enough and playing forward enough. If you play 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, it doesn’t matter if you are not doing that. I’m not in doubt of that.”