Thomas Frank calls for huge Carabao Cup revamp as Tottenham boss makes 'boring' claim

Thomas Frank has made a plea for the two-legged Carabao Cup semi-finals to be scrapped in order to prevent the "same boring teams" from consistently winning the competition. Newcastle ended an 11-year streak of victories by Big Six clubs in the competition when they hoisted the trophy in March.

Meanwhile Crystal Palace claimed their first ever major trophy in the FA Cup and the current Premier League top-four table features Bournemouth and Sunderland. Ahead of Wednesday night's match against Newcastle, the former Brentford manager suggested that the League Cup schedule should be altered to give smaller teams a better shot at winning silverware.

"There should only be one semi-final," the Dane insisted. "I said that before at Brentford and that's why I'm very happy to say it again."

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"For the smaller clubs, if you want to beat a bigger club, it's much easier to play only one game. So if we really want someone to break out and it's not the same boring 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 easy."

The last occasion the EFL Cup semi-final was contested over just one leg was during the Covid-affected 2020-21 campaign when Tottenham defeated Frank's then Brentford side 2-0. Spurs dismissed Jose Mourinho a week prior to falling to Manchester City in the final.

Frank's Bees were beaten 3-1 by Newcastle in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals last term following his decision to make five alterations. "That's a long time ago," said the Dane. "I remember we lost."

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

And the Dane, 52, revealed he had extensive experience developing such moves, beginning with his Under-12 side in Frederiksvaerk and subsequently his Denmark Under 17 national squad which overcame Jordan Pickford's England team 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. But Brentford was the real game-changer.

"Especially 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."