The three powerful Tottenham people watching their youth match and what annoyed Thomas Frank

Almost every other home in Bodo has one of the Norwegian club's big yellow flags flapping in the breeze on a pole attached to their wall, even some of the boats do in the harbour.

Everything circles around the football club. Well to be honest, everything in the town by the sea has to circle around it because it's a rather self-contained place due to its size. You can walk across the main area of Bodo, which sits above the Arctic Circle, in about 15 minutes.

Come out of the airport, walk across the small car park and the adjoining road and you're in the town. Five minutes more and you're looking over the Norwegian sea. Somewhere in between and you'll pass the Aspmyra Stadion, where Tottenham came, saw and conquered in May on its artificial surface and will be hoping to do so again on Tuesday night.

The proximity of it all means you'll see aeroplanes taking off behind one of the stands at the stadium that holds a little over 8,000 people. Bodo could have sold tickets for this game three or four times over such is the clamour to watch their Champions League debut in the league phase.

Some even turned out on Tuesday morning for the UEFA Youth League match between the two clubs' U19s which ended in a 6-0 win for the north London outfit, with captain Callum Olusesi in particular impressing and bagging two of the goals. Luca Williams-Barnett and Jun'ai Byfield came off the bench for Wayne Burnett's side and were later seen making their way through Bodo's town centre on a couple of stand-on scooters.

It wasn't just the fans of both clubs watching the Spurs and Bodo/Glimt players of the future on Tuesday morning as some of Tottenham's new-look hierarchy were in attendance.

Vivienne Lewis and her son-in-law Nick Beucher, two of the powerful figures behind the Lewis family's public backing of the new regime at the club, were sat up in the stands at the Aspmyra Stadion watching the youngsters in their black away kits win comfortably.

They were joined by Matthew Collecott, Spurs' director of finance and operations as well as the group operations and finance director of ENIC, the company that the Lewis family run which ultimately has the controlling stake in Spurs. Collecott is the last remaining member of the three-strong, long-serving old regime on the board that included former executive chairman Daniel Levyand executive director Donna Maria Cullen.

The Lewis family's presence at the youth game was notable for two reasons. Firstly, because Levy was never spotted at such matches, and secondly because their presence comes amid the third expression of interest in a takeover this month, this time from an American consortium headed up by DJ turned tech entrepreneur Brooklyn Earick.

Sources close to the Lewis family maintain they have zero interest in selling the club to anyone and Spurs have public declared that same message along with "unequivocally rejecting" all three expressions of interest, the first from an Asian consortium and the second from former Newcastle director Amanda Staveley and PCP International Finance, who later announced their intention not to pursue a bid.

While you might say that anyone looking to drive up the price would maintain they have no intention to sell, for Lewis and Beucher to turn up on Tuesday morning to watch the youngsters play ahead the main first team match which kicks off at 9pm Norwegian time does not reek of people desperate to let go of what they have in their hands.

Rejecting such approaches of course does place the spotlight firmly on how heavy the Lewis family will back the Lilywhites financially in the coming transfer window and whether things do truly kick on from the Levy-led ENIC era.

Spurs technical director Johan Lange was also present as were first team coaches Stuart Lewis, Dean Brill and Andreas Georgson.

Lange, Lewis and Beucher all went for a walk alongside the sea later in the afternoon with Tottenham CEO Vinai Venkatesham, the bearded Beucher leading much of the conversation with his American accent, having been to Bodo before.

Another presence in Norway but not on that walk is Fabio Paratici, fresh from receiving his 18-month suspended jail sentence for those well-documented problems at Juventus. The Italian flew over to Bodo on Monday amid expectation that the club's former managing director of football will eventually return from his consultancy role into a more official position again despite the latest goings-on around him.

In Norway, the streets of Bodo are busier than normal ahead of the game, although for the English media there has been less focus, perhaps because Tottenham were here just four months ago in what was a bigger game, certainly in terms of the desperate need to triumph.

That meant just five journalists from the UK made the trip for Thomas Frank's pre-match press conference on Monday night at the stadium, although they were still enough in numbers to slightly annoy the Spurs head coach, particularly when it came to the latest injury news, while the local media attempted to rile him in a different way.

Frank will have found out by now that nobody does injuries quite like Tottenham Hotspur and that's why he will constantly get questions about them, especially the ones that drag on and on like Dominic Solanke's ankle has this season and Randal Muani with the deadest of dead legs.

The Spurs head coach is not too keen on giving out injury news unless asked specifics are asked and even then you are not guaranteed an exact answer. To be fair to Frank, other Tottenham managers have had to go down the same route as injuries have taken longer to heal than initially expected. Honesty, or at least the full picture, has not always proved to be the best policy at Hotspur Way.

With Solanke, his ankle problem has rumbled on since the summer, meaning he has yet to start a competitive match this season after suffering the injury while miskicking a ball in training. He appeared to be on the way back after returning to sessions with his Spurs team-mates this month.

That came after an injection into the England international's ankle in the September international break that initially appeared to settle it down. Solanke continued to feel discomfort in his foot though and had to stop training.

In recent press conferences, Spurs journalists have worked in a pincer movement to get as much information out of Frank as possible on Solanke, with the fanbase frustrated, and on Monday the 51-year-old confirmed to football.london that the striker is set to have a minor procedure on his ankle that should only keep him out for a few weeks more, with the coming international break also taking up part of that.

Such is the pessimism among Tottenham supporters and reporters after last season's horrendous injury lists, there was always an expectation that Solanke would require surgery and it was just a matter of time.

When football.london followed up and asked if it had felt like a wasted month or so for the England international, Frank started to show the first slight hints of irritation.

"I think you can look from two ways. That's the easy answer, but it's not that easy. If we knew we could have done the surgery a month ago, we probably would have done it. So for me, I'm always like I imagine, ‘oh, it is what it is, we deal from now’," he said. "No doubt that the way we dealt with this was because we thought that was the right way because I think in general, no one wants a surgery, no matter how small it is."

Frank also admitted that captain Cristian Romero had not travelled to Bodo as a precaution. This was how the exchange went with one reporter attempting to get a little more detail on the skipper.

"Just following up on Romero. What was the issue?", asked the journalist. "Just precaution," replied the Spurs boss. "Is it a muscle," came the follow-up. "No, just precaution," replied the Dane with a smile that suggested anything but happiness.

Those were the final two questions of the press conference and perhaps it was the local Norwegian media who had tipped him towards being more irritated than normal.

In May, Bodo/Glimt player Frederik Sjovold had said that Tottenham's pressing was.... let's say bad in the first leg and that was put to Ange Postecoglou by the Norwegian media back then to which he simply said: "That's okay. There is a game tomorrow. All those things will be answered."

This time, it was put to Frank that Bodo goalkeeper Nikita Haikin had said earlier in the day that it was unusual to see a team like Spurs with their attacking style of football going for long throws and set-pieces everywhere on the pitch and what did the Dane think of that?

"Who said that, sorry?," he said and when told he retorted. "OK. Erm, I personally think that set-pieces are an extremely important part of football. Isn't there a stat that 33 per cent or something like that that all goals are scored from set-pieces?

"So I think it's clever to utilise a third of your opportunities to try to score a goal. I'm happy, that's a fine comment. If you think that's a strength of ours, I'm happy with that."

To be fair to Haikin, his actual quotes were more positive sounding about Spurs being dangerous from set pieces than being a criticism as the question had come across in the press conference to Frank.

Either way, Frank was still able to maintain his composure despite the slightest hints of irritation. He will be cheered by the fact that his key midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur is close to agreeing a new contract with Spurs with his current deal heading towards its close this summer.

As it was back in May for his predecessor, Frank will be hoping this Tottenham team and Bentancur again do their talking on the pitch at the Aspmyra Stadion and it will be with some powerful figures behind them looking on.