Thomas Frank has 'no idea' if Cristian Romero will be at Tottenham next season

The Tottenham Hotspur boss has been speaking about his captain after another social media outburst from the Argentine World Cup winner

Thomas Frank admits that he has "no idea" whether Cristian Romero will be at Tottenham next season after a week in which the captain appeared to express his anger at the club's lack of winter signings.

The 27-year-old hit out on Instagram just minutes after the transfer window closed this week about the lack of available players after he had needed to come off at half-time of Spurs' 2-2 draw with Manchester City with illness. The Tottenham skipper had posted: "I wanted to be available to help them even though I wasn’t feeling well, especially since we only had 11 players available - unbelievable but true and disgraceful."

Frank confirmed that Romero would remain his captain despite his latest outburst and would only confirm that the club had dealt with the matter internally.

Romero has been a pivotal figure amid Tottenham's struggles under Frank with six goals and four assists but reports in his homeland suggest the World Cup-winning centre-back is keen to leave this summer, despite having only signed a four-year deal in August.

When asked if he expected the Argentina international to be at the club next season. Frank said: "That’s a question I have no idea about. Right now he is the captain, he has a long-term contract and we signed a new contract with him."

While speaking in general, rather than about Romero specifically, Frank said that anyone who might not be happy should still be expected to do their job.

"As long as everyone does their job, then it is fair enough. I am pretty sure there are also some players who don’t think I am the best bloke or whatever it is, but as long as they work hard and do everything they can on the pitch then I am happy," he said.

"Is the feeling better if everyone is aligned and happy and likes each other? Probably. But it is all about the performances on the pitch. In general in his time here, the ones I have been in charge of, [Romero] has been exceptional. I think he has had some unbelievably big games for us, not only defensively but he has also scored some crucial goals."

So is it a case that if you are good enough, you can say what you want on social media?"I think there is, in general, over time, there is always one line you cannot cross. For any player, for me, for any staff members, for anyone," admitted Frank.

After last month's defeat at Bournemouth, Romero had posted about other people at Spurs who "only show up when things are going well, to tell a few lies", before deleting the final five words of that sentence. After that incident Frank had said of Romero that "you can make a mistake but don’t make the same mistake twice".

Now it appears Romero has done the same again and Frank was reminded of his previous answer.

"I think sometimes someone makes more than one mistake. We have dealt with it internally," he said. "Leadership is many things. I’m 52-years-old. I think I’m pretty good at leadership. Can I get better every single day? Yes. Do I make mistakes? Maybe not every single day but probably weekly. Romero is 27-years-old. Is he still going to make mistakes going forward as a leader? Yes. Does he do a lot of good things? Yes."

A string of Tottenham players had liked Romero's post including vice-captain James Maddison, star striker Dominic Solanke, Xavi Simons, Pedro Porro, Djed Spence and the club's only senior winter signing Conor Gallagher.

"I think it’s one person speaking up. We don’t know if he speaks on behalf of all the players, that’s your perception so we don’t know that. Secondly, we don’t know if that’s what he thinks. We can read into a text. I think we have a team and squad to compete but of course we have a few injuries that doesn’t help us," said Frank.

"It’s all contextual. Right now, we have a few injuries. If we had four injuries less we would feel less. I’m not in doubt of that of course, injuries doesn’t help but it's part of football. If you didn’t have that I’m sure we would feel different."

He added: "Everyone here is ambitious. Everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to make sure we do the best in the league and we have a good opportunity in the Champions League that we need to hunt everything we can.

"We’ve had some good performances, better, and in how they are running when they are behind I see a team that is fighting, players fighting and that’s a big thing."

On the transfer window he added: "In the summer we made two good signings in Xavi Simons and Mohammed Kudus, and a good loan in Joao Palhinha so it’s not as though we don’t want to loan players to strengthen the squad.

"And if you compare us to other top six clubs, we think it was a big signing with Conor Gallagher. I know the club is very ambitious and the owners are very ambitious and I have no doubt we will see that going forward."

Frank was asked if Romero is someone who just loves to have something to fight for, whether it's on the pitch or off it.

"That is a good question. You can definitely see he is a fighter and he is a warrior," said the Dane. "He leaves everything out there on the pitch in every aspect. There are also some duels you can see he goes in with everything. I don’t know if he needs a specific reason for having that fight."