Thomas Frank
Two Boxing Day games have been cancelled today. What are your thoughts?
My thoughts are that it’s no surprise, we’re in an ongoing pandemic. We see a rise in cases across Europe and the world so I guess it’s a part of it. As I said many times to be clear, if they have too many positive cases in staff and players, then there’s nothing to do.
Any injury updates?
Everyone from the squad from Chelsea, should be available.
You’ve spoken on five subs – will you bring it up in the meeting?
I think it’ll be a positive thing. Without COVID, I still think we should have five subs; I just think it will add something new to the game. You can make more tactical changes as well, it’s not only fitness so I think that will be good. We’ve gone from one sub to three, but the squad just increased and then we have 20 on the bench so I don’t understand why it’s not five.
The only defeats in the past six games have come against Chelsea and Spurs. How pleased are you with this recent form?
Very pleased. I just spoke to the players about it today that I would say especially from the Everton game and also this Chelsea game, so I think it was Everton, Tottenham, Leeds, Watford and now Chelsea, very good performances, all five of them. Very strong defensively, giving limited chances away to the opponents and try to build more and more level on the attacking side of the game. So pleased we are in a good place and we would like to carry on.
Graham Potter has confirmed there is COVID amongst his players and staff. Is that cause for concern?
I think it’s very simple. If we want to play and carry on, there’ll be lots of cases for the next two to three months. If we do what we do now, I think that’s the best way to try to carry on and if we carry on, there’ll be situations where there are cases every days in different clubs. We test the day before or the day after so I think we’ll be fine, and I think the big thing is that when we actually play the matches, there is a minimal risk of transmitting the virus.
What have you made of Brighton under Potter this season?
I think they’ve done very well. I think Graham and his staff are doing a top job down there, they develop their style of play constantly year after year. They’ve been, a little bit like us, a bit unlucky; they should have had more points, a lot of draws in the recent games. So the recent games they’ve struggled a little bit to get over the line to get the win, but that is because football is a random game. A lot of the games they’ve played recently, they should have won against [Newcastle and Leeds] as well, but a lot of them they dominated, created chances and play a nice style of football.
