Thomas Frank slams referee's 'big mistake' as Tottenham knocked out of Carabao Cup

The Dane weighs in on the furore surrounding Newcastle’s opener

Thomas Frank criticised referee Chris Kavanagh for showing a lack of "common sense" in Tottenham's defeat to Newcastle.

Spurs were beaten 2-0 at St James' Park as they were knocked out of the Carabao Cup, ending their previously unbeaten record away from home in all competitions this season.

The visitors fell behind from a corner in the first half when Fabian Schar headed in but Spurs were left furious as their players surrounded the referee and Frank confronted the fourth official.

The taking of the corner was delayed as Djed Spence's boot came off and he took his time putting it back on.

As soon as it was on and Spence got up, Sandro Tonali swung the corner in before the Spurs man had got back into the box, and Schar - whom Spence was supposed to mark - headed home.

Spurs were adamant Spence should have been allowed time to get into his defensive position and Frank viewed it as a significant error.

Tottenham protested Chris Kavanagh’s decision to no avail

Action Images via Reuters

"I think for me, we conceded two goals because of two mistakes," Frank said.

"Unfortunately, the ref was part of the mistake in the first one. I'm not saying there's things we can't do better, but his boot is off, we need to tie his shoelace and tie his boot.

"And you can clearly see on the footage afterwards that the whole boot is off, so we need to do it. And it's minute 23, it's not like we delayed the game for one minutes and we have one goal up. It's common sense to allow him time to get in. So as soon as he had the boot on, the ref let it go."

Frank admitted his side were to blame for the second goal, when Antonin Kinsky came for a cross and did not get there to allow Nick Woltemade to head into an empty net.

However, he was particularly aggrieved by the opener as he revealed it would have been Spence marking Newcastle's scorer.

"To make it perfect, Djed's man he had to mark was Schar, that scored," Frank said.

"So that's why we were very animated. I think that was the biggest one. I think the rest was fine. There's always small bits you can be irritated about, but it's very difficult to ref a game.

"But this for me was unfortunately a big mistake. And then we made a mistake ourselves on the second one. So small margins decided the game today."