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Thomas Frank - Former Head Coach

MartyFunkhouser said:
Thats a weird take and a perfect line to draw under this conversation.
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You said you can’t be having that I claimed some knowledge upfront, I tried to explain in detail why that wasn’t really what I was saying. I can’t believe that you can seriously argue at this point that hiring Frank has not been a terrible decision, especially with that we knew at the time, valid concerns that many people pointed out have just been proven out.

It’s been a disaster. You seemed to not like that I was claiming something, but I’m confident in what I said at the time. I think there’s nuance. I raised some concerns, I’m also a fan that wanted to be optimistic.
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
You said you can’t be having that I claimed some knowledge upfront, I tried to explain in detail why that wasn’t really what I was saying. I can’t believe that you can seriously argue at this point that hiring Frank has not been a terrible decision, especially with that we knew at the time, valid concerns that many people pointed out have just been proven out.

It’s been a disaster. You seemed to not like that I was claiming something, but I’m confident in what I said at the time. I think there’s nuance. I raised some concerns, I’m also a fan that wanted to be optimistic.
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I never said anything of the sort, I said you made a statement when Frank joined thay you were certain he would be a success to then claim that it was never going to work from the appointment.

I gave you that being cautious, but the two are clearly contradicting stances laced with hindsight.

How that means im offended I dont know, but im going to leave the subject there
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
1. I’m not saying ‘I knew it was wrong from the start’. With the best will in the world, I trusted the people in position to make the decisions that they had done their diligence.

2. But I did raise concerns and I think those concerns have been proven out, and I’m annoyed that the people in charge seemingly didn’t do their diligence properly like I hoped they would have, and not only that, for whatever data they were analysing, I think they were drawing the wrong conclusions from it. Did the squad need Frank? Would he adapt his football? Would his kind of motivation translate well after Ange?

It’s all well and good that Frank was highly rated and interviewed with Chelsea. But we need our club to be more analytical than that. Was he right specifically for us? Was he right to take over what came before? Is that what we actually needed? All the noises coming from Frank and the club, the injuries, the competing on all fronts, the needing to learn to defend, it all suggested they were drawing the wrong conclusions as to why we actually struggled.

I give Levy a ton of credit for hiring Poch, and hiring Ange. I think with Ange he correctly deduced that the club and the squad and the fans needed a leader, a unifier, someone with charisma who would bring an attacking style back, it was a great appointment on those terms. Frank by contrast was atrocious.

I’m sorry that my claiming some knowledge ahead of time offends you but that’s really not what I’m saying. As a fan with the limited information I had, I trusted the decision makers and wanted it to work. I also defended Frank a lot. But it’s entirely consistent and fair to say the concerns I raised when he were appointed have been borne out. And that’s why I’m frustrated, because I placed my trust in the decision makers and they just did a shoddy job.
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Frank is like Potter, Iraola, Silva, Glasner, etc. Managers who's achievements at lesser clubs have given them the right/shot at being considered for bigger roles.

But like when you interview people, the CV gets you the interview, the interviewers need to pick up the things that cannot be gapped. Frank honestly (you can look at my comments pre his appointment) never passed the sniff test

- Too direct
- Too concerned with opposition, no default system of his own (what was the transition vision to a dominating team)
- Possession numbers too low (again, not unexpected at smaller clubs but area of concern, compare with Poch at Southampton as alternative)
- Doesn't demand enough of himself or team (the we will lose games statement example), the best people believe and will state that they can literally achieve the impossible, very few successful people play down themselves.

I'd also argue his inability to settle on a first 11 probably hides other things, either Bretford divided a lot more duties or he simply has never had a squad where you genuinely had multiple players for positions.

In a corporate world, the hiring team would have a lot to answer for on this one.
 
MartyFunkhouser said:
I never said anything of the sort, I said you made a statement when Frank joined thay you were certain he would be a success to then claim that it was never going to work from the appointment.

I gave you that being cautious, but the two are clearly contradicting stances laced with hindsight.

How that means im offended I dont know, but im going to leave the subject there
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Ok mate, I’m sorry I said you were offended. It was a slightly facetious comment but I didn’t mean to come across like a dingdong. If I have done so, I am genuinely sorry.

I can’t quite find the words to express what I mean. I’m not trying to claim I had some massive advance insight, I’m trying to say that I’m frustrated with the decision makers because I trusted them to make the right decisions, and I do believe that a lot of the concerns people would have had about Frank have been absolutely borne out. Like, I assumed they would only have hired him if there was going to be a different style of football. I assumed a bunch of things would be different in order for Frank to work. But in the end he just looked out of his depth and the players did not look inspired.
 
Raziel said:
Frank is like Potter, Iraola, Silva, Glasner, etc. Managers who's achievements at lesser clubs have given them the right/shot at being considered for bigger roles.

But like when you interview people, the CV gets you the interview, the interviewers need to pick up the things that cannot be gapped. Frank honestly (you can look at my comments pre his appointment) never passed the sniff test

- Too direct
- Too concerned with opposition, no default system of his own (what was the transition vision to a dominating team)
- Possession numbers too low (again, not unexpected at smaller clubs but area of concern, compare with Poch at Southampton as alternative)
- Doesn't demand enough of himself or team (the we will lose games statement example), the best people believe and will state that they can literally achieve the impossible, very few successful people play down themselves.

I'd also argue his inability to settle on a first 11 probably hides other things, either Bretford divided a lot more duties or he simply has never had a squad where you genuinely had multiple players for positions.

In a corporate world, the hiring team would have a lot to answer for on this one.
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Agreed on all counts. I think I genuinely bought into this idea that Frank was adaptable and only played that way because he had to at Brentford, and of course he would change with better players at Spurs. This is before you get into the points about motivation and what he demands.

I think the hiring team has a lot to answer here too. And I think Lange should be worried. Are we doubling down on his vision this summer? Would Poch want to work with him? He’s made a recommendation and it’s failed miserably. There has to be consequences for that.?
 
If I wanted to be kind I would say that possibly he focused too much on the negatives of last season/our general position & weaknesses when taking over and set out with too much caution as a result. The goals against, the defeats, the high number of possession losses etc - he referenced the latter early on iirc, I wonder if that meant he treated us like his promoted Brentford team rather than his more recent Brentford team (or his promotion chasing Brentford team) perhaps he thought playing a more front foot game with our lack of solid/consistent on the ball midfielders meant we would continue to be punished on turnovers. I've often referred to Brentfords build up play stats from last season and how they differ from what we were seeing here - they did build up through the middle of the pitch much more than what we saw here - so that gave me reason to think we would eventually see some development towards that here
 
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SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
Agreed on all counts. I think I genuinely bought into this idea that Frank was adaptable and only played that way because he had to at Brentford, and of course he would change with better players at Spurs. This is before you get into the points about motivation and what he demands.

I think the hiring team has a lot to answer here too. And I think Lange should be worried. Are we doubling down on his vision this summer? Would Poch want to work with him? He’s made a recommendation and it’s failed miserably. There has to be consequences for that.?
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In a corporate world, Lange wouldn't survive.

Reality is Frank's performance would have come under question in November/December, probably 2 more times before final decision.

If Lange (and Vinai) had said in November, "hey, this guy isn't what we expected/hoped, we made a mistake, lets punt him and course correct as quickly as possible to change season, and btw, we have a backup plan with x or y option" then they would have gotten away with minimum blame.

By backing him, more than once, it shows poor judgement and incompetence. As I said in any corporate environment I've worked in, Lange would be dead man walking now, just a matter of time, probably summer where it will fly under radar a little bit with all other announcements
 
billyiddo said:
If I wanted to be kind I would say that possibly he focused too much on the negatives of last season/our general position & weaknesses when taking over and set out with too much caution as a result. The goals against, the defeats, the high number of possession losses etc - he referenced the latter early on iirc, I wonder if that meant he treated us like his promoted Brentford team rather than his more recent Brentford team (or his promotion chasing Brentford team)
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I thought he did that with player rotation early, thought he was making a concerted effort to manage the injuries, which lead to a feeling he didn't know his best first 11, however once the pressure was on, he did run Porro, Richi, Kudus, Bentancur into the ground.

I never got his defensive tactic, surely with our back line and two DM's you could grind out a few 0-0 draws? but we didn't, and surely if you are building a defense first side, you would have some kind of transition game?

Honestly I think he thinks Arteta's anti-football is the objective, but for Arteta to get that to work, he took a better team than ours, struggled for 2+ years, added 1B in players and they still can look like brick to watch ..
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
Ok mate, I’m sorry I said you were offended. It was a slightly facetious comment but I didn’t mean to come across like a dingdong. If I have done so, I am genuinely sorry.

I can’t quite find the words to express what I mean. I’m not trying to claim I had some massive advance insight, I’m trying to say that I’m frustrated with the decision makers because I trusted them to make the right decisions, and I do believe that a lot of the concerns people would have had about Frank have been absolutely borne out. Like, I assumed they would only have hired him if there was going to be a different style of football. I assumed a bunch of things would be different in order for Frank to work. But in the end he just looked out of his depth and the players did not look inspired.
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Why would you assume Levy and co have any specific insight or natural understanding for what works for us manager wise? When has that ever really been the case? Why would the appointment of Frank be any different?
 
I looked back at what I wrote.
I stand by it.
For the way the club was run he was the best appt from all the suggestions precisely because he is such a nice and publicly 'safe' guy. My biggest doubts were whether he could scale up and whether he could implement a style of football I wanted to see (as did some of our supporters).
Those remained my consistent questions from the start.
I think where HE was let down was by the people directly around him (Lange and VV) plus the board churn which absolutely spannered the continuity within the club on all levels due to the bizarre timing.

However I think it was pretty clear from early on that he did not fully grasp what this club is. I saw The Guardian 'meat grinder' thing, and I'd commented a while back that we are unique in how we chew them up and spit them out as they all think they can be 'the ones' to change things.
It is why when we had one who finally did, who finally won a trophy, I could not believe that there was not curiosity in finding out where a 'winning side' might go. I had commented at the time I wished we would go 'to dare is to do' but I equally knew Ange was already gone in Feb and that saving a Levy u-turn, the decision had been made.

Back to Frank being let down by the club. His press conferences often left me incredulous; he was out there on his own, trying to create an unsupportable narrative, trying to create positivity where there was none (and I don't blame him for that, WTF should he be doing), yet equally, he made negative remarks from early on. Were we really a CL club? We were going to lose games of football. We had to remember we finished 17th last season. To name a few. He desperately needed some guidance media-wise, yet I believe both he and the club felt that because he'd handled Brentford so well there would be no need. Wrong. He did also suffer a horrendous injury crisis, yet had some of his own 'team' here in that regard, so tough to know the full story there but yes, very unfortunate. However, given his tactical nous, he largely continued to hammer the same system, even when the fit players in the squad were better with other systems. Strange.

Ultimately, anyone who thought he was going to turn this around after Xmas was (I think) allowing their own very decent sense of general morals and reasonable behaviour to dictate over what was clear. He wasn't ever going to fit. Someone said it was like Hodgson to Liverpool, and that feels fair.

I wish we'd taken the plunge when Paratici wanted it to happen. He'd still be here for his man Tudor. The downside (as my friend pointed out) would probably have been that it would've guaranteed De Zerbi in this summer, and I think he's dangerous and a c unit.
 
Bishop said:
Why would you assume Levy and co have any specific insight or natural understanding for what works for us manager wise? When has that ever really been the case? Why would the appointment of Frank be any different?
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I think Levy has done some good things. Eg appointing Poch, it seemed like at the time the whole thing was ‘we need to think more long term, we need a season to reset, we need to hire someone excellent at developing young players and building a system to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts’ and it worked fantastically. I feel like when Poch first joined, there were noises that we would be ok not finishing in Europe in his first season. It was about establishing foundations, and lo and behold we did that and actually ended up all the better for it.

Similarly appointing Ange. I think he was exactly what was needed at the time. Ditto Conte, I can see the argument that Conte excels with good but not great players, because they will buy in to his highly rehearsed system and that can lead to outsized results. And a totally fair argument that he was what’s we needed at the time.

I think the appointment of Frank had good intentions but I think his appointment was a reaction to a misdiagnosis of the previous season. Much in the same way the decision to sack Poch was a misdiagnosis of what was going wrong. So while I think he can get appointments right, I think he’s ultimately been too focussed on the short term ‘what do the results say’ and not a wider context,
 
Bishop said:
Why would you assume Levy and co have any specific insight or natural understanding for what works for us manager wise? When has that ever really been the case? Why would the appointment of Frank be any different?
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Spot on mate - other than the fluke appointment of Poch; the only coaches that came good were MJ (who was not even chosen initially) and Redknapp out of sheer desperation....
 
MartyFunkhouser said:
You literally said "We’ll be good under Frank. I have no doubt" at the time of appointment?? You certainly wasn't angry at the time, we can all claim to be cautious when any manager is appointed. But I don't buy this hindsight "I always knew" because honestly no one ever truly knows whats coming down the road.

That confuses me with the argument you seem to be making.
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I didn’t know but my fears came true. I said over and over it was a terrible appointment, mostly because of what it told the squad who’d toiled so hard for a manager they loved. They got the 101st blow, cracked the rock and then were told “sorry guys, it’s the wrong one.”

Then you add in how boring and negative he was, it’s no wonder it went as badly as it did. And no wonder only 3 players have come out to say thanks to you.

Non-footballing people looking at metrics and not understanding everything else that went into last season.
 
tommysvr said:
I didn’t know but my fears came true. I said over and over it was a terrible appointment, mostly because of what it told the squad who’d toiled so hard for a manager they loved. They got the 101st blow, cracked the rock and then were told “sorry guys, it’s the wrong one.”

Then you add in how boring and negative he was, it’s no wonder it went as badly as it did. And no wonder only 3 players have come out to say thanks to you.

Non-footballing people looking at metrics and not understanding everything else that went into last season.
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I think this is exactly what happened psychologically with the squad.

I do think Frank can succeed with another team, for sure. I think his appointment was completely the wrong one for what the squad needed, and it smacked of not really understanding what was happening with the team last season.

The guys on the Extra Inch podcast asked this…was no one talking to the players? They asked it in the context of how long Frank was allowed to continue. But I think it also shows that he was not what the players needed in the first place.
 
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