Thomas: “First and foremost, I think Everton is a very competitive team with many good players - more than just Grealish. I think Beto has been good up front, Ndiaye has been very good. Dewsbury-Hall. A good colleague and friend of mine, David Moyes, is in charge and his team is always very, very competitive. He's a manager and a person I respect massively in the game. And then of course Grealish, I think it's also down to, of course always the player, but also part of the coaching staff, the manager and Moyes have got Grealish to flourish again. He is their main creator, no doubt about that. He's so dangerous, he can create something out of nothing in every game, so of course we need to be wary.”
Can I ask you about long throws - a strong weapon in today's game?
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Thomas: “I think this season I've seen a crazy peak in it. Personally, I like it. I think it's whatever you can do to create an advantage in your team or create an extra weapon, extra threat, I think you need to look into it. I know there can be styles and what you believe in and all that, I'm just thinking, ‘how can I make sure that we hopefully maximise the opportunities to try and score a goal?’ To score a goal is the most difficult thing to do in football. Can you give yourself one more weapon? Why not?”
Can I ask about Xavi Simons and his time at Spurs so far?
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Thomas: “Xavi has been with us for seven or eight weeks, something like that, which is a very short time in football, but in a way also a long time. He is adapting every day. I liked his personality, the way he played the first 60 minutes against Villa and I think he tired a little bit. It's part of the learning coming into a much more intense league. I think my demands and our demands to him is more intensity in general. He is a player I believe in. I think he’s got the pass, I think he’s got the vision. He has just been out there, we have been training and I think he trained very well. Hopefully he will improve step by step.”
Pape Matar Sarr started the first six games of the season and was really good, since then, he’s started one - is he fit?
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Thomas: “Yeah, there is nothing wrong with him. He started the first six games and I think he was a very good player for us. I think we rested him, maybe as a minor precaution. It's just competition, other players have done well, decisions from me but in general I am happy with Pape. I said that before, he was one of the players that impressed me the most in the beginning of the season and he is a very good player.”
What do you think of the viewpoint that the team with Bentancur and Palhinha starting together has been a bit predictable in possession recently?
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Thomas: “I think probably the team - it's always team effort how we construct the team or how, in the end it's my final decision of course. It's a collective effort in terms of how we want to build up or how we want to create chances. I think both of them are more than capable to help the team and one thing is that part of the game, the other part is of course how we can make sure we are strong and solid enough if we are in a spell where we may be… it's not as free flowing as we want it to be because of new players getting, how can you say, gelled together, getting it more smooth, more free. How can we make sure that, if that does not work, how can we make sure we are super solid and still building? So, that's part of the puzzle.”
Results have been good since you came here - do you think those elements of performance are on track with what you expected by this point?
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Thomas: “I think if we look at the performances in the games we've played so far, 13, I think it's been one bad game against Bournemouth, there's been a bad second half against Wolves and a bad second half against Monaco. I think the rest have been good, or good plus, or very good. And when I talk that I'm not talking about everything is free floating, but I just think your role, how you're competitive in a game, you are aggressive, you play with intensity, you try to get chances, you play behind them and all that, so I think that's the way you build a culture in a team.”
Have you noticed any effects on the team after the wider structural changes at the club recently?
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Thomas: “I think that's, how can you say, the day we decided that Daniel was not here anymore, was of course a little bit, how can you say, ‘unusual’ is probably the word to use. Then there were first couple of weeks a lot of questions from you guys, I need to answer that and a little bit in the media and all that, but since then you get on with things. I focus on trying to prepare the team in the best possible way with my coaching staff. The players, are in their own little bubble and try to do the best they can to perform and make sure we are in the best possible place, so for me now it's a little bit like business as usual and then of course, how can you say, behind the scenes we are getting to know each other better and the direction we are going in.”
Sarr, Bergvall and Gray started the first game in midfield (against Burnley) - is there any specific reason why we have not seen those three together since then?
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Thomas: “Probably because I thought the other bits were more of the right players to pick for the day. Of course, I'm looking into every aspect to try to do everything I can to maximise the performance and us playing. First and foremost, maximise performance and what I think is the best way we can try to get results of course, but also make sure we play as good as possible. In general, I’ve been overall happy with both Joao and Rodri, in what I'm looking at, people can look at different things, as I said there's also how we construct the front four, that's a big part of how you can say creative we've been and that can be, they are finding their feet and I still think that's positives from a lot of them.”