Tottenham boss Thomas Frank demands major Carabao Cup rule change - 'Fix it'

Thomas Frank has demanded two-legged Carabao Cup semi-finals be abolished to prevent the 'same boring teams' from dominating the competition. Newcastle secured the trophy last season, breaking an 11-year streak of Big Six clubs claiming successive victories in the tournament.

Crystal Palace won their first major honour in the FA Cup whilst the current Premier League top four features clubs like Bournemouth and Sunderland. Before Wednesday's trip to St James' Park, Frank argued the Carabao Cup format requires modification to provide smaller sides with better opportunities to claim silverware.

He declared: "There should only be one semi-final. I said that before at Brentford and that's why I'm very happy to say it again. For the smaller clubs, if you want to beat a bigger club, it's much, much easier to play only one game.

"So if we really want someone to break out and it's not the same boring same teams that are winning - of course except for Spurs - then we need to skip one semi-final.

"For everyone else that plays so many games, it should only be one. So if it's about money then someone needs to fix it. If it's the Premier League playing money to the EFL, because as far as I understand it's because of that, so someone fix it. It should be very, very easy."

The previous occasion the Carabao Cup semi-final was contested over a single leg came during the pandemic-affected 2020/21 campaign, when Tottenham defeated Frank's Championship outfit Brentford 2-0.

Spurs dismissed Jose Mourinho just seven days before suffering defeat to Manchester City in the final.

Frank's Bees were knocked out 3-1 by Newcastle in last season's Carabao Cup quarter-finals following his decision to make five changes.

"That's a long time ago," said the Dane. "I remember we lost."

Tottenham, who won the Europa League last season, have now climbed to third in the Premier League following five consecutive away matches without defeat and five goals from set-pieces, including two headers from Micky van de Ven at Everton.

Frank revealed he had extensive experience developing set-piece routines, beginning with his under-12 side in Frederiksvaerk before progressing to his Denmark under-17 national squad which defeated England at the Euros in 2011.

"They were very, very good in playing football, **** at set pieces," he laughed. "With a proper old school coaches called Viggo Jensen, we worked on it and we scored the first goal in the Euros against Serbia then we won 3-2, then we beat England 2-0 in the second game.

"Brentford was the real game-changer, sspecially with that focus from Matthew [Benham] but especially Rasmus Ankersen. If one should have credit for the long throws it's Rasmus Ankersen. He loves that. When we beat Arsenal on the first day on a long throw in the second goal he was very, very happy."