One thing to share...during the pod just now, we opened up a conversation as to why Thomas Frank is actually (in several senses) relatively blameless regardless of our views on how this club should play or not.
He appears to be doing the very best job he can. I have to remind myself of the Sissoko rule; don't expect Pirlo/prime Eriksen from Sissoko. Don't expect expansive, free-flowing football from Frank. It is simply unfair. Further, he can only accept the job he is offered and do it to best of HIS abilities!!!
Increasingly, I want to know more about the reasons behind the decision to hire him. At the time I said he was the best hire for the club we were set up to be; I now find myself wanting to know more details about who is making the decisions as to 'what club we are going to be' and who drove the appt? We discuss this on the pod. It arrives at a couple of interesting places. I'll say this much again; I cannot blame Frank as he he is the type of manager he is (and, in the right set-up, a very decent one at what he does). We're sort of back at Conte again; IF the people who chose him really want him, they're going to have to give him elite all over the place and spend a lot of money, because his way leaves no margin for errors if trophies are the endgame. It's something others have said. I still believe this squad -if deployed as it was in the first-half- can win a lot more games than it has. But yes, the ideal would be to back him 100% IF the direction he travels is what the board believe this club should be. FWIW, that style is counter to what I like, however I support the club wherever it goes...
for discussion purposes, not sure if I see it the same way. Here's my view
- Ange scared the club on the injury front, the sheer extent of 14 players being out, the rash of significant long term (full season) injuries included gave the leadership major concerns
- I genuinely think that is what ruled out Iraola, I think the club looked seriously at him and the unsustainable intensity was the deal breaker
- I think the legacies of Jose and Conte often just being unlikeable, with Ange being the opposite meant, one of the characteristics (Vinai/Lange I think talked about this, what they were looking for) was a decent/likeable guy (probably also to ease the pushback from firing a recently cup delivering manager)
- The other Ange hangover, along with what people could see at United (think at some point Amorim was on our radar as well), was the concern about managers that were inflexible, so in that characteristics box went tactical flexibility.
- Then you could probably add the bonus boxes -> managed/proven in PL, data driven, modern approaches
You take those, look at the next set of manager in line for a step up -> Iraola, Frank, Silva, etc and you can see why Frank was an option (I'll not add my original concerns)
Where I disagree with you is
- I thought as most people did, that Frank's tactics were based on what he had (smallest budget of any ever present PL team in his time at Brentford), i.e. if you give him better, the team would play better (they were more expansive by most reports in championship)
What I'm not seeing is any evidence of that, what I'm seeing is a guy that will play the same "don't lose, don't create risk to impose yourself regardless of the gap in talent between your team and opposition" even if he had a better striker/LW/CM, again look at United, added a better keeper, added 200M+ in front line, are the results better? yes, because they will keep out a few more, and score a few more, but realistically they still play brick.
And I don't think the comparison's to Conte are even close, Conte knew exactly what he wanted out of each player, they knew where to be, we knew we were a mid block team setup to counter, we knew we gave up a numerical advantage in midfield (only pre-injury Bentancur made it work). With Conte it was easy to see where upgrading a player could change the result. I still don't understand what is our press trigger under Frank, why do it sometimes not others, why swap between being high, mid or low block?
While I agree I don't think he's actively trying to be brick, I think Frank is unfortunately (and I have nothing personal against the guy) is a Potter, the risk/reward/small club (not meant as a dig) tactics simply don't translate at this level (even with better players), because we need to take more risks so we get those 5-6 more wins a season that are the difference between 10th-14th and 4th-7th, at Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth 10th is a good season, at Spurs 10th is the 3rd worst result in 20+ years.
And this is already an essay but someone was commenting on Pep's changes over the years and he said the consistency was Pep was constantly trying to do two things
- Create overloads in spaces (so you outnumber your opponent and can pass/move around them)
- And/or create isolations (1:1s where the quality of his players would shine through)
And the second point is where I think managers making that step up fail, it was a flaw under Ange (he focused so much on the overloads it rarely allowed us to rely simply on having better players, especially against lesser teams). Frank is the same, he doesn't have a system that gives Kudus a change to go at his man (we won't stretch the game or pass decisively to give him an advantage), instead we thump the ball at him under pressure as an outlet ball instead of using him as a weapon, same for Richi, play a player off him and get him lots of balls in the box to make him score, not bang the ball to him in the air with his back to goal 35 yards out. And I think you agree with me on Johnson, he may not have been the guy, but how the fudge did we not try him off the striker as a second forward considering how much of a finisher he was (and if it didn't work, so be it, but we never even tried). And again this smacks of a manager who has never thought about what happens if I have the better team across the park? it so feels like we are the promoted club that needs to grind every game, take every draw as a good game with the odd win (3 wins in last 11)
Summary, he is probably doing his best, but for the above reasons I don't think it works and I don't see how giving him money really changes it, sure a better striker would win us the odd extra game, a better midfielder might help us grind another draw out, but I don't see how he makes that transition to not only the tactics but putting the mentality into the players of "you are expected to win this game"
