Thomas Frank delivers Micky van de Ven new Tottenham contract verdict

On the Dutchman’s happiness, he added: “I just saw Micky today, he seems very happy, smiling. He was very happy after the game that we won [against Borussia Dortmund] when he was in the changing room after.

“Micky is an excellent player. He’s a fantastic ambassador for this club. He has potentially had his best season so far. He’s fit, he’s strong, good defensively, he’s growing as a leader, scoring goals as well. He’s a very important player for us this season and for the future.”

While Van de Ven has had a much better season with injuries, Frank received the bad news this week that 19-year-old midfielder Lucas Bergvall looks set for months out with an ankle problem. That makes it five long term injuries suffered in consecutive matches.

Summer signing Mohammed Kudus is out until April after his quad injury against Sunderland, then Rodrigo Bentancur was lost for the same timeframe to a hamstring injury at Bournemouth. Up next was Richarlison out for two months with a hamstring issue against Aston Villa in the FA Cup, before Spurs lost Ben Davies to a serious ankle injury against West Ham and then Bergvall’s problem against Dortmund.

With Spurs players having suffered 20 different injuries this season, Frank joked that it feels like the club might be cursed.

“Some of it is we always need to assess and look at what can we do to avoid some of the injuries,” he said. “Then we know there’s a lot of contact injuries. The Bergvall one, how unlucky is that? There was another contact injury, Joao [Palhinha] and Kudus.

“Some of them are like ‘OK, what’s happening here?’ It seems like we are cursed or something like that! But injuries are a part of football. The next thing we need to look into is how can we make sure the return to play is speeding up, that we do the maximum we can to get the players back as quick as possible.”