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Tottenham boss Thomas Frank has been speaking to the media before Saturday's FA Cup third round tie against Aston Villa at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (kick-off 17:45 GMT).
Here are the key lines from his news conference:
- Mohammed Kudus will be out until at least the end of March because of a thigh injury sustained against Sunderland. Lucas Bergvall and Rodrigo Bentancur will be assessed further on Thursday after they went off injured in the loss at Bournemouth, while there is a hope that Dejan Kulusevski might return to training in about four weeks’ time.
- Asked about confrontations between players and fans after the Bournemouth game and how the relationship between the two can be improved, Frank said: "The away fans were very good throughout the game. They were backing us, singing and supporting exactly as they should do and we hope they would do. Everyone will be happy when we win more games, it's as simple as that."
- On captain Cristian Romero’s social media post which appeared to criticise the club’s hierarchy, Frank added: “After he became captain, he’s done a lot of good things right. I said when I made him captain that even though he’s an experienced player, he’s still a young leader.”
- Frank continued: "A lot of things he's done well, on and off the pitch, I'm happy with and I was happy with his performance last night. He was a true captain in many ways throughout the game. Also when you're a young leader, sometimes you make a mistake and it's good to keep it internally. Johan [Lange] and I had a good conversation with him this morning about everything, which we keep internally."
- Frank believes Spurs deserved more than the five points from their past five Premier League games and added: "It's my job to deal with all of the scrutiny, it's no problem, I can face all of the questions and I will take all of the blame. It's also my job to look through everything."
- He added: "It's almost a perfect storm. In a storm, some people are building fences and hiding behind it, others are building windmills and getting stronger, getting more energy and learning from it."
- Frank reiterated that the club are "working very hard" to try to improve the squad in January, but added that January is a "very difficult window".
- He stressed that "even though there is noise, the club is very aligned".
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