Tottenham Hotspur manager Thomas Frank faced questions about more than the result after his side lost at Bournemouth. Photographers captured Frank walking in the away stadium holding a cup that, for reasons unclear, carried Arsenal branding. That image became a focus on social channels and was raised during Frank\u2019s post-match media duties.<\/p>\n
Frank, the former Brentford manager, rejected the premise and said he would not have taken the cup if he had realised what was on it. \u201cDefinitely not noticed it. I think it\u2019s fair to say that we\u2019re not winning every single football match so it would be absolutely, completely stupid of me to take a cup with Arsenal ,\u201d he said. \u201cIs there anyone thinking I\u2019ve done that? All the staff has done it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been in the changing room, the game before us. It\u2019s normal to take a cup, give me an espresso, I do that before every game. I think actually it\u2019s a little bit sad in football that I need to be asked a question about that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re definitely going in the wrong direction if we need to worry about me having a cup with another logo of another club, of course I\u2019ll never do that. That\u2019s extremely stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n
The evening\u2019s frustrations extended beyond the cup. Bournemouth secured a dramatic late winner and tensions spilled over with players and sections of the travelling support. Palhinha and Tottenham centre back Micky van de Ven were involved in altercations with Spurs\u2019 supporters after the final whistle. Those who had paid to follow the Europa League holders were clearly frustrated by the performance.<\/p>\n
Tottenham\u2019s captain Cristian Romero addressed followers on Instagram in a post that took aim at those he suggested should be speaking up. \u201cApologies to all fans of you who follow us everywhere, who are always there and will continue to be,” Romero posted on Instagram. \u201cWe are responsible, there\u2019s no doubt about that. I am the first.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we will keep facing up to it and trying to turn the situation around, for ourselves and for the club.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt times like this, it should be other people coming out to speak, but they don\u2019t\u2014as has been happening for several years now. They only show up when things are going well, to tell a few lies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll stay here, working, sticking together and giving our all to turn things around. Especially at times like this, keeping quiet, working harder and moving forward all together, is part of football.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll together, it will be easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Romero later edited the post to remove the \u201cto tell a few lies\u201d line, drew attention from his 5.1 million followers, saw teammates Pedro Porro and Richarlison post support, and the message was subsequently deleted by the Argentine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Frank criticised attention on an Arsenal cup after Spurs lost at Bournemouth; Romero responded on IG.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[739,969,187],"tags":[1006,1379,1307],"class_list":["post-5838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bournemouth","category-premier-league","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-captaincy","tag-club-structure","tag-collapse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}