Thomas Frank rubbishes Slot’s claim over Van de Ven in the aftermath of Alexander Isak’s serious leg injury.
Thomas Frank hits back at Slot over claim of ‘reckless’ Van de Ven challenge on Isak.
Following Arne Slot’s criticism of Micky van de Ven for a “reckless” challenge that resulted in Alexander Isak suffering a fractured leg, Thomas Frank retaliated against Slot. The head coach of Tottenham claimed that Van de Ven’s attempt to stop Isak from scoring during Liverpool’s 2-1 victory over Spurs was the “natural reaction” of a true defender and that his player had apologised to the Sweden international.
Slot stated on Tuesday that Liverpool won’t get their record £125 million acquisition “for a couple of months.” On Monday, Isak underwent surgery to fix a fractured fibula in his ankle.
Although the procedure went smoothly, Slot is still upset about the difficulty that trapped Isak’s left leg and resulted in the fracture. In a match when Spurs had Xavi Simons and Cristian Romero sent off, Liverpool is also perplexed that the tackle went unpunished by referee John Brooks and video assistant referee Stuart Attwell.
“It was a reckless challenge,” Slot said. “I’ve said a lot about the tackle of Xavi Simons, which for me was completely unintentional. I don’t think you will ever get an injury out of a tackle like that. But the tackle of Van de Ven, if you make a tackle like that 10 times, 10 times there is a serious chance the player gets a serious injury.”
In response, Frank strongly defended Van de Ven. “I’m obviously disagreeing in many ways,” the Spurs head coach said. “We are talking about a defender in Micky van de Ven that will do everything he can to avoid the goal.
“So it’s a transition. So he’s sprinting back in. There’s a ball slid down the side and he does everything he can to see if he can block that shot. So he’s sliding. Unfortunately, Isak plants his foot straight there and that makes it look worse than it is. I think that would be a natural reaction for any defender.
“I’ll put it this way: if my defenders don’t do that, then I don’t think they are true defenders. So I don’t see that at all. Normally, you haven’t seen any reckless challenges from Micky. As I remember it, he’s a very fair and competitive player.
“So that’s one thing. The other thing, you also know that the two players have sorted it out. They have spoken. So that’s a good sign of how they sorted it out.”