Thomas Frank
Deserved three points?
I thought so. In a relatively even game we edged it and should have got three points. I think if we won 1-0 you couldn’t have said anything to that. So I’m sitting here slightly disappointed actually. Under pressure we were extremely good, high, middle. Very aggressive going forward, winning the ball lots of times under pressure. In the first half but especially in the second half. But after we won it we didn’t have enough quality or coolness to get massive chances. That continued throughout the game. On the ball we need to be more cool, more focused. Not only win it but there were situations, especially in the second half, where I wanted us to move it and keep it from side to side to create a chance. Defensively, we only gave one big chance away to Gallagher and kept Zaha and Gallagher quiet. Overall it was a good performance but I still want more.
Two clean sheets in a row must please you?
Defensively it gave us some good believe. We had that belief before but of course it’s nice to see it in action, live, that we feel we can be here and defend well. High, middle and low. Two clean sheets is definitely something we value very highly.
Need to keep Ivan calm, goals will come?
100% Ivan will score goals. I felt in the game today there was fantastic work ethic, he worked so hard to pressure and he was a constant threat throughout the game. He’ll be tough on himself because he knows he should have scored one of the big chances from the corner. That would have been a beautiful 1-0 away win. If he can’t give us goals now, he’ll give them in another time.
Did he want it too much today?
No, I don’t think he tried too hard. I think sometimes we lacked a situation where we played him in for a bigger chance. Also from set piece situations. I think he had a very decisive action where he sent a cross across goal in the second half. He was very efficient.
It looks like you are enjoying it so far?
Yes, I’m enjoying it. I hope that will continue. It’s a fantastic stage to be performing. I’m really pleased and proud of how the boys presented themselves on the pitch but I am just slightly disappointed by how we were on the ball. I liked how we were aggressive, we preyed and got forward. We’ll try to continue.
Happy with how you dealt with Zaha?
I actually felt besides the big chance to Gallagher we gave nothing away. Throughout the game we kept Zaha and Benteke very, very quiet, which I am pleased with because they are two very good offensive players. The way we defended – tick, plus, really good. But sometimes you need to edge these even games.
Was this point almost as valuable as beating Arsenal because you have backed up your performance?
What I am very pleased with, and I even said this to the boys, is that I would have been very disappointed if we didn’t focus on today. We put out a quite stable performance but I felt before that there were three points to take today. You should take that when you have the possibility but it’s good to have something to work on.
Conor Gallagher was causing problems in first half but were the instructions to close him down at the break?
We spoke about him at half time because we knew he’s a very good offensive midfielder who likes to find pockets in the half space. We adjusted it at half time and I don’t feel he was a threat in the second half. We got that adjusted.
Vitaly in charge of keeping him quiet?
I like Conor Gallagher, he’s a good player but, no disrespect, I felt it was even more important to keep Zaha quiet. We did a very good job of trying to isolate him with high pressure. Both Vitaly and Frank the Tank covered a lot of ground. We saw how tired they were at the end and we wanted to keep the intensity going constantly. They both did well, Vitaly did good again today.
