Thomas Frank has said he is yet to decide whether to keep Son Heung-min as his captain at Tottenham and the new manager did not offer any guarantees that the club’s marquee player would stay beyond the closure of the summer transfer window.

Frank addressed a host of subjects at his official presentation on Friday before his first Spurs game – the friendly at Reading on Saturday – taking in his targets, how he intends to play and the desire to guard against the level of injuries that undermined his predecessor, Ange Postecoglou. He revealed that Dejan Kulusevski, who underwent knee surgery on 14 May, would not be available for the start of the season.

Frank was typically friendly, if a little nervous; the packed media auditorium was a far cry from what he was used to during his seven years at his previous club, Brentford. He appeared determined to keep his cards close to his chest, to sidestep the tricky questions but his wish to live in the moment and not look too far ahead did little to convince on Son.

The 33-year-old Son, who led Spurs to Europa League glory last season – his first silverware in 10 years at the club – has 12 months on his contract. There has been no indication that Son is ready to agree to fresh terms and the chair, Daniel Levy, would surely hate to lose him as a free agent.

“Good question,” Frank said, when pressed on whether Son would remain captain. “I haven’t decided anything on that. I have a long list of bullet points I need to get through and I take them in the right order.”

Frank said that Son would captain the team for one half of the Reading game, with Cristian Romero, one of the vice-captains from last season, wearing the armband for the other half. Romero has been tracked by Atlético Madrid, although there are doubts as to whether the Spanish club would be able to make a compelling offer for him, which would need to be at least £60m.

Frank was asked whether Son had earned the right to decide his own future. “It’s always tricky, situations like that … if that happens,” Frank said. “Right now I have a player that is fully committed and training well and will play tomorrow. If a player has been at a club a long time, then there will always be a decision for the club to take.

“Because there is something in it if someone wants to leave at a certain stage … then there can be something there. But the club will always decide in the end. First and foremost, he’s here now. I’m not worried too much about it. Let’s take that five or six weeks down the line. That will probably [be a question] I get the following week, so I’ll practise my answers. Right now, he’s here.”

Frank fell back on more than one occasion on three buzz words: he wants his team to be brave, aggressive and attacking. And while he agreed with Levy’s assertion that the ambition had to be to win the Premier League and Champions League, Frank made clear that the most pressing goal was to be competitive in all four competitions – including the Champions League, to which Spurs have won a return.

“What are the odds for us winning the Premier League this season?” he said. “I think we’re probably not the favourites. There are probably three teams at least ahead of us but we will do what we can to build a strong and competitive team.

“The first aim is that we need to be able to compete in all four tournaments and do it on a consistent level. I think 2019 was the last season where the club managed to compete in more than one competition. If we can compete, there’s maybe a chance that you can hopefully end top. But we need to be able to build to compete first.”

On the hot topic of fitness, Frank acknowledged the remorselessness of the schedule. But he said: “Hopefully the way we train, building layers, building robustness into the players, is going to be a big part and making the players more available through the season. Hopefully we can make good decisions, with feeling, with knowledge, with numbers, [about] when to rotate and when to rest. It’s a big thing as well.”

Frank joked he made his “first rookie mistake” when he mentioned Arsenal and their Invincible season – “the team that we can’t mention [at this club]”. He did so in the context of an answer in which he said it was “100% sure” Spurs would lose league matches because virtually everybody did – apart from you know who. It was part of his overall expectation management sweep.

Frank also got a few smiles when he considered how Spurs had sacked five managers in the time that he spent at Brentford. “Only five?” he said. “I like to challenge myself. I have the privilege that I have never been sacked before. That is one of the reasons why I took the job. I get a little bit more risk in my daily life.”

The bottom line is that Frank will be under pressure, partly because he is succeeding a trophy-winning manager, who some of the fans did not want to see go; partly because of the talent in the squad, which will be supplemented during the transfer window. Frank made no comment on the ongoing pursuit of the £60m-rated Nottingham Forest midfielder, Morgan Gibbs-White.

“It’s the easy part now – the honeymoon,” Frank said. “Everyone is happy, the sun is shining, we haven’t played a game yet. I think the honeymoon is five, six weeks of pre-season. Then it’s reality, no matter if we won [a trophy] last season or not. So, five, six weeks where you can do a lot of good stuff and then it’s reality. I look forward to that.”