Thomas Frank reveals the worrying thing Tottenham ‘lacked’ against Bayern Munich

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Thomas Frank has admitted that Tottenham Hotspur did not play with the kind of energy he wanted to see against Bayern Munich, but explained why he will not be reading too much into the performance.

Leading up to the clash on Thursday, the signs in pre-season had been very encouraging for Spurs, who looked defensively resolute and threatening when they got into the final third.

However, that was a far cry from what we saw from the side at the Allianz Arena, with the 4-0 loss exposing some of the Lilywhites’ weaknesses.

There were concerning signs for Spurs against Bayern, both defensively and going forward against the Bundesliga side, with the Premier League outfit being second-best all across the pitch.

Thomas Frank bemoans Tottenham’s lack of energy

Frank acknowledged that his side came up against one of the best sides in Europe, but confessed that he wanted to see more energy from his players.

The 51-year-old remarked that while there have been many positive signs across pre-season so far, he will take a lot of learnings from his side’s poor showing in Germany.

Frank told Football.London: “I think we played a very good Bayern team that performed very well tonight. We obviously didn’t perform as good, so that was a bad combination, and I think we lacked energy, and we can’t play without energy against a team like Bayern.

“I don’t think it’s because the players didn’t want to do it. We’ve seen it with plenty of energy against Arsenal and Newcastle, for example, especially with the Arsenal performance, which was a good one.

“So, I think it’s definitely a game we’ll learn a lot from. It’s a team that will compete for the Champions League title that we played today. There are bits we’ll definitely learn from this game.”

Frank admits he will not rush to conclusions about his Spurs side

However, the former Brentford boss insisted that there are factors that explained Tottenham Hotspur’s lacklustre showing on Thursday.

He insisted that he and his coaching staff would analyse things calmly rather than jumping to conclusions ahead of the campaign.

Frank added: “I think we played a game where there were a lot of factors already, so I think right now we’ll watch it back calmly, while not making too many conclusions now.

“But we learn every day on the training pitch. Every match, we learn. So we definitely learned today. We’re not at a top consistency yet. Hopefully that’s what we will build towards.”