Thomas Frank - Former Head Coach

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

I'm not comparing them as managers and outcomes.

Its the wider point of fan behaviour.
(Btw I have no clue as to United fans dissection of Amorin, hence the question marks)

I can appreciate why the fans would want to move on. I just want someone, anyone in the media to say ‘oh my GHod that appointment was absolutely terrible! He was so poorly suited and nearly relegated them!’ but it’s just not gonna happen. Very weird.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

I can appreciate why the fans would want to move on. I just want someone, anyone in the media to say ‘oh my GHod that appointment was absolutely terrible! He was so poorly suited and nearly relegated them!’ but it’s just not gonna happen. Very weird.

Shall we just put him in the Christian Gross envelope?

 

[Kane]

What's also being forgotten is that we got more points this season. This season was unprecedented in the amount of points you could have and still finish 18th. You didn't have the comfort blanket of knowing that there were 3 awful teams who were getting relegated and every game from about March onwards was a dead rubber. Last season would have been very different if the bottom of the league table had the same dynamics as this year.

Indeed...up to and including winning the cup. Ange got credit for winning it, and for diverting energies and focus away from the league. Fair enough, he seized an opportunity that just so happened to become available to him in that particular season. But as you indicate, the outcomes may well been more challenging, harder, and/or different if the bottom 3 had been stronger that season.

 

[Muttley]

Indeed...up to and including winning the cup. Ange got credit for winning it, and for diverting energies and focus away from the league. Fair enough, he seized an opportunity that just so happened to become available to him in that particular season. But as you indicate, the outcomes may well been more challenging, harder, and/or different if the bottom 3 had been stronger that season.

I think most people know I would always give massive credit to Ange for winning that cup. Our club needed that and he delivered it. Fair play. I've also said I would have loved him to just adopt one philosophy across league and cups for the final third of season regardless of the eleven that take the field. He visibly didn't and we were completely porous in the league. It was unacceptable to me.

I just think fans need to be able to tell the difference between the cards that are dealt season to season. To be fair, a lot do.

I'm cautiously optimistic about next season. I'm sure by August I'll be delusionally optimistic like always.

 

[SteveAWOL]

Bayern, to a lesser extent PSG, and Chelsea.

Hear me out here -

Bayern - basically win the league every year even with a plank of wood in charge. Kompany isn't exactly Conte in terms of emotional intensity.

PSG - see above. Their elevation to European success came with Luis Enrique, but they're rich enough that anyone can coach them and win Ligue 1 at a minimum.

Chelsea - they win things even when in utter chaos, and regardless of the manager. Dour Avram Grant won something with Chelsea, iirc. So did di Matteo, later of West Brom. Enzo Maresca, quiet systems coach from Leicester. And so on. Comes down to them always spending billions on the best squad, that (until recently, anyway) just worked to keep them winning.

In all these cases, the clubs have structural advantages that allow them to win regardless of the coach. We aren't that - we have no advantages relative to the rest of the big boys. So we need a messiah to pull us over the line.



For sure mate. I don't mean nutcase messiah pejoratively - more that you need to be a little bit crazy to believe in Spurs and what you can do at the club, even when no one else does. In my experience, all those that inspire loyalty in others have that attribute - a slightly crazy amount of self belief and the ability to make others believe, too.

Someone who comes in saying 'we will lose games' is right, analytically speaking. But all wrong, personality wise. Poch, Ange and now (looks like) de Zerbi - all of them know how to get people believing in impossible causes. You need that at Spurs. You don't elsewhere.

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[Surfless]

Not directed at you as such but it bugs me that Frank is described as pragmatic. He wasn’t, by any definition of the word. He was completely risk averse.

De Zerbi inverting Palinha and the left full back’s positions so we have an out ball from the back, with the better receiver and passer taking the ball in a central area…that is pragmatic. It’s making the best of the resources at your disposal. Accentuating the strengths and masking the weakness. Frank was just scared.

I think I interpret pragmatic as risk averse in footballing parlance. I get your point though, one man's pragmatic here is another man's inventive, based on how you just summarised the former.

 

[Ace Face]

There’s like a really weird code of silence with Frank. In the media especially. It’s like everyone is unwilling to front up and acknowledge what an absolutely disastrous appointment it was. And you can do that without attacking the man so personally, but I see no one really doing it. There’s nods to it - description of bad form, reminders of the negative atmosphere at home, but no one quite puts it all together and says it how it is. He was an absolutely atrocious fit, and very nearly got us relegated.

The treatment of Ange by contrast, given he actually did achieve 5th and a trophy, is very clear. Equally even Tudor, treated like a laughing stock for managing a few games of a team suffering a massive injury crisis and extremely low on confidence. Was Tudor the saviour like De Zerbi? No! But why is he the laughing stock and the person that produced genuinely the worse football we have played in the PL era and who systematically destroyed the confidence of the team getting off with nothing?

It’s completely odd, the biggest example for me is when Spence and Micky ignored him. Even then it was written off as ‘they’re just frustrated about a bad performance in a derby at home’. There was no examination of what it meant to be ignoring the manager at that time. Deeply weird code of silence to protect this guy.

Yep. I don’t understand the “oh well, we almost got relegated but he’s a nice guy so we’ll let it go” thing.

He f***ing sucked. He was the most anti-Tottenham coach I can recall and he had us playing apologetic football…”oh, excuse us if we try to score too, very sorry if we hurt anyone’s feelings”. It was awful, bland and reactive…the very opposite of what this glorious club stands for.

But he has good hair, drinks red wine and speaks decently of others, even though the boat was sinking, so we’ll give him a free pass.

I don’t get it.

 

[Baleforce]

There’s like a really weird code of silence with Frank. In the media especially. It’s like everyone is unwilling to front up and acknowledge what an absolutely disastrous appointment it was. And you can do that without attacking the man so personally, but I see no one really doing it. There’s nods to it - description of bad form, reminders of the negative atmosphere at home, but no one quite puts it all together and says it how it is. He was an absolutely atrocious fit, and very nearly got us relegated.

The treatment of Ange by contrast, given he actually did achieve 5th and a trophy, is very clear. Equally even Tudor, treated like a laughing stock for managing a few games of a team suffering a massive injury crisis and extremely low on confidence. Was Tudor the saviour like De Zerbi? No! But why is he the laughing stock and the person that produced genuinely the worse football we have played in the PL era and who systematically destroyed the confidence of the team getting off with nothing?

It’s completely odd, the biggest example for me is when Spence and Micky ignored him. Even then it was written off as ‘they’re just frustrated about a bad performance in a derby at home’. There was no examination of what it meant to be ignoring the manager at that time. Deeply weird code of silence to protect this guy.

It’s not odd at all, one of them was clearly a smart football coach in the wrong place at the wrong place and the other a complete fudging simpleton who didn’t understand the fundamental basics of professional football.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

Well Amorim left than in 5th, it’s no where near the level of disaster that Frank was. And I think that’s my point…for Frank to even be compared to Amorim shows how differently he is treated relative to how bad he actually was for us.

TBF, the blokes gone, its done, you seem intent on him having to be hated. He was just the wrong bloke at the wrong club, but he wasnt a bad bloke. We move to forward

 

[Gazza]

Yep. I don’t understand the “oh well, we almost got relegated but he’s a nice guy so we’ll let it go” thing.

He f***ing sucked. He was the most anti-Tottenham coach I can recall and he had us playing apologetic football…”oh, excuse us if we try to score too, very sorry if we hurt anyone’s feelings”. It was awful, bland and reactive…the very opposite of what this glorious club stands for.

But he has good hair, drinks red wine and speaks decently of others, even though the boat was sinking, so we’ll give him a free pass.

I don’t get it.

This whole the Tottenham way or the anti Tottenham way, the West Ham way etc is a load of tripe. It might have been iconic but teams and managers have to reinvent themselves to keep up with the competition, who are constantly evolving and not stuck to age old traditions that don’t work anymore.

I get the sentiment behind it, but how about the new Tottenham way, where teams just cannot score past a resilient defence and get outplayed in attack. Not this, you score 5 and we score 3 but it was a great match, a great match at our expense.

The league and teams are so much more grown up where the margins are so thin, that having one way of playing just makes it easier for the opposition.

But yes Frank failed epically to deliver on the Tottenham way, the Frank way and any other which way you care to see it.

I was excited to see what he could do but it was very obvious after about 6 games that he either needed to adjust quickly or lose his position with the squad and his employment.

 

[Ace Face]

It’s not odd at all, one of them was clearly a smart football coach in the wrong place at the wrong place and the other a complete fudging simpleton who didn’t understand the fundamental basics of professional football.

And yet one of them had the whole world including Robbie Williams and The Fonz raving about us, gave us dreams of winning the league and did win us our first major trophy since ‘91 (the league cups don’t really count).

The other was the wettest of wet farts whose replacement, a fudging set-piece coach, produced better results after they had sold all of their best players.

 

[Finney Is Back]

It’s not odd at all, one of them was clearly a smart football coach in the wrong place at the wrong place and the other a complete fudging simpleton who didn’t understand the fundamental basics of professional football.

Frank is the second one right?

 

[Ace Face]

This whole the Tottenham way or the anti Tottenham way, the West Ham way etc is a load of tripe. It might have been iconic but teams and managers have to reinvent themselves to keep up with the competition, who are constantly evolving and not stuck to age old traditions that don’t work anymore.

I get the sentiment behind it, but how about the new Tottenham way, where teams just cannot score past a resilient defence and get outplayed in attack. Not this, you score 5 and we score 3 but it was a great match, a great match at our expense.

The league and teams are so much more grown up where the margins are so thin, that having one way of playing just makes it easier for the opposition.

But yes Frank failed epically to deliver on the Tottenham way, the Frank way and any other which way you care to see it.

I was excited to see what he could do but it was very obvious after about 6 games that he either needed to adjust quickly or lose his position with the squad and his employment.

I was never excited about someone whose biggest achievement was an 8th place finish.

Whether it’s the Tottenham way or not (btw I include Poch in this who played attractive football while also having a good defensive record), Frank almost made us the laughing stock of the global sports world. He was even pictured pre-match with an Arse*** cup in his hand ffs. He was a disaster without any entertaining qualities at all. Really struggle to see why he gets a pass from us. He was the epitome of “average” and if there is one thing this club isn’t it is that.

Good riddance and I suspect he’ll be found out again at whatever his next club will be.

 

[Gazza]

I was never excited about someone whose biggest achievement was an 8th place finish.

Whether it’s the Tottenham way or not (btw I include Poch in this who played attractive football while also having a good defensive record), Frank almost made us the laughing stock of the global sports world. He was even pictured pre-match with an Arse*** cupping his hand. He was a disaster without any entertaining qualities at all. Really struggle to see why he gets a pass from us. He was the epitome of “average” and if there is one thing this club isn’t it is that.

Good riddance and I suspect he’ll be found out again at whatever his next club will be.

Well time will tell. His Brentford team were punching, developed great players, gave the successive coach a springboard … better managers have failed here in equal measure if you look at money spent and expectations.

He failed. It happens. Move on.

 

[parklane1]

TBF, the blokes gone, its done, you seem intent on him having to be hated. He was just the wrong bloke at the wrong club, but he wasnt a bad bloke. We move to forward

Do not hold your breath for that to happen.

 

[billyiddo]

TBF, the blokes gone, its done, you seem intent on him having to be hated. He was just the wrong bloke at the wrong club, but he wasnt a bad bloke. We move to forward

This - and there's no one interested in defending him or taking exception to the criticism so the topic has no legs for discussion. What else is going to happen other than it being consigned to history?

 

[Gazza]

Do not hold your breath for that to happen.

Pochettino.. discuss

 

[Finney Is Back]

Shall we just put him in the Christian Gross envelope?

I think Gross had a better ratio of points per PL game than Frank did!

 

[Ace Face]

Well time will tell. His Brentford team were punching, developed great players, gave the successive coach a springboard … better managers have failed here in equal measure if you look at money spent and expectations.

He failed. It happens. Move on.

Fair enough.

Personally I still blame him more than any other individual for the past 9 months of gloom, embarrassment and anxiety which has aged my soul ten-fold during that period.

But you’re right, time to move on. Love and positivity instead of hate. Let’s just not sweep his tenure under the rug. It needs to be remembered for what it was so we don’t repeat the mistake.

 

[billyiddo]

I think Gross had a better ratio of points per PL game than Frank did!

His ppg would have seen us finish on 42 points over a full season, a point more than we ended up on...