Neil Thompson on Thomas Frank 'professional foul' policy after tackle sees Sheffield Wednesday youngster ruled out for six weeks
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An over-zealous tackle by Brentford right-back Henrik Dalsgaard has left Sheffield Wednesday youngster Fisayo Dele-Bashiru with an ankle injury that will likely see him out until April and came in the days after his manager Thomas Frank encouraged his side to make more ‘professional fouls’ in order to stop opposition counter attacks.
Dalsgaard received only a yellow card for the foul, which incensed the Owls bench.
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Hide AdSpeaking in his post-match press conference, Frank said he was satisfied with how his side carried out his instructions, saying: “We learned from recent games and we were clever enough to make those professional fouls. We did those twice today. Every team does them against us, so it is part of the game.”
Two days on Wednesday caretaker boss Thompson told The Star: “It can be cynical at times. You look at the tackle on Fisayo and it wasn’t great.
“You can call it professional fouls, call it whatever you want, call it a bit of savvy. Sometimes you have to get cute in the game but he’ll deal with whatever he has to.
“He can deal with in his team and we’ll deal with our team.
“From our point of view, the defeat the other night was not down to anything like that, it was down to switching off at certain times and not defending properly in the box.”
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Hide AdAsked whether his side could benefit from embracing the ‘dark arts’ of the game a little more, he said:
“That’s down to the individual and how they see the game. At the end of the day there are a lot of decisions players have to make with the ball, without the ball and when the heat of battle is on, sometimes you do things you’re not supposed to and things that aren’t good.
“You’ve got to do that sort of thing sometimes, you have to manage the game and sometimes if you’re ahead you have to find a way to see it out. You can call it professionalism, you can call it what you want.”