Thomas Frank on Pochettino, relegation battle, injuries and Romero

I think there's two things, it needs to be the nice combo between reality and selling hope. That's a fine balance. I knew it would be a tough season, I didn't expect it to be as tough as it's been, so I think that's down to injuries, down to margins, down to a lot of things. You can say two red cards after 30 minutes and that's not what you plan for. A lot of seasons you go through a season with zero red cards, so it hasn’t been straightforward. I know where we want to go and I see a lot of good things going on as well, and that just how can I say, it's not as positive when you don't win the games.

I think it’s, like with me, it’s never only one person. I understand it is the head coach who gets the most blame when it is not going well and maybe get a little bit of praise if it is going well. That’s part of the job so I knew that.

In my opinion the way I have already seen, I can’t speak about what happened before, of course I inherited a squad and some players. But the way I see it and the way we do it now, we do things together. So in the September (summer) transfer window it was Fabio as a consultant, Johan, Vinai (Venkatesham), Daniel (Levy) and I. Now this window it has been the Lewis family, Vinai, Johan, Fabio and I. That’s been the way the whole time so it is us who do that.

I could have worded it differently, maybe. But I do think there's something, it should be that feeling. It should be that feeling when we haven't won enough. So the way I work, we're all different, is that if you haven't won enough, then you do everything you can, and you actually do a little bit more, you work a little bit harder, you just know that's the way out of a tough moment. So that's what I expect from the players, and I actually think that's what I see from the players.

I think they run very hard, and I think that's why I'm so annoyed that we couldn't get anything out of the United game, because there would have been five games, and I'm convinced 11 against 11, we would have got something out of it.

Of course, you never know, but there were five games with positive, and then we could really try to turn a corner. And of course, when you haven't won enough, you need to be desperate, because if you're not desperate, you don't understand the situation you're in, in terms of you don't win enough, you need to turn it, and win enough football games. That's what we want for the fans, that's what we want for the team, for the club.

Unfortunately Destiny has a hamstring injury, he will be out for 4-5 weeks.

Djed Spence is back. Kevin Danso will be weeks.

Kevin [Danso] is with a medical consultant. It is going forward but still weeks before he is available. Deki has got another appointment at end of this week where we’ll know more, but of course out of Champions League, is a sign it’s not tomorrow.

(Will he play again this season?) I don’t know.

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