What Tottenham did immediately after Champions League win sums Thomas Frank up

Thomas Frank got his Tottenham Hotspur players who did not feature in the Champions League clash against Villarreal to play in a small-sided game afterwards.

The former Brentford boss secured his first ever victory in Europe's elite competition against the La Liga side. An own goal from Villarreal goalkeeper Luiz Junior was enough for Spurs to get their European campaign up and running with three points.

Overall, it was a clash where neither side reached their best level, but Frank won't mind too much. The Dane is the kind of manager who does not look backwards, instead putting his focus onto the next game on the calendar, which is away to Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday in the Premier League.

This was evident after the match, when Spurs players who did not come on against Villarreal got the training goals out and played a small sided game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It goes to show Frank always wants his players to maintain their sharpness, particularly if they spent a cold evening sat on the bench.

He will demand his fringe players to be as fit and active as possible, with the Spurs manager previously stressing the importance of having a big squad which is able to rotate on a regular basis.

Frank will be relying on them in Europe particularly, as he was left frustrated by the fact he could only enlist 22 players in his European squad rather than the maximum of 25. This was due to Brandon Austin being the only club-trained player in the first team.

It resulted in £30million summer signing Mathys Tel being left out of the squad, while long-term injury absentees James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski were also left out, as was Radu Dragusin and Kota Takaki.

Commenting on leaving Tel out of the Champions League squad a few days before the Villarreal game, he said: "First of all, that was an extremely difficult decision to make.I also think, in many ways, it was a bit unfair.

“I also think that the UEFA Champions League lists are not big enough. We know the load on the players is getting bigger and bigger. We have said it many times, we are hopefully playing 60-plus games. That's without international games.

"So some of them can be involved in up to 70 games. So I think that we need probably a bigger squad. I can't understand why we need to limit ourselves.

"I actually like the idea of the club-trained players. I think it's a good thing, every team needs to develop their own players. So I think that's good. Of course, that limits us a little bit as it stands.

“Hopefully, we get it after that, but because we had a less number, I had to make a decision now instead of making a decision before a team selection."

After Tottenham travel to Brighton, they then face Doncaster Rovers next Wednesday in the Carabao Cup third round. Frank has enjoyed a strong start to life as Spurs boss, currently guiding them to third in the Premier League table, winning four of his first five matches in all competitions.

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