Vinai Venkatesham - CEO

[glasgowspur]

But to bring this back to Vinai in the Vinai thread…do we think that Frank in his interview process explained that he would play football that would be pleasing to the Tottenham fans, but first he would start from a solid base before ‘adding layers’, in the way that his Brentford team also evolved?

Were the decision makers bought into that plan? If so that’s quite concerning. As again, RDZ showed it was possible to play a style of football that would get Spurs fans applauding, within 2 games.

I wonder if the only point VV was brought into was the only constantly made by the media and a reasonable percentage of our fanbase that all our players are brick.
Add to that that Frank was never exactly enthusiastic about the players.
So brick football until Frank could get something to build on.

 

[Mikey10]

80% of the people on this site had never heard of the word "turgid" until AVB became our coach.


(Just seeing how far off topic I can take this thread).

He was nowhere near as bad as Billy Minter.

 

[thfcsteff]

Not true. Ange was blamed by many on here (his thread was constantly near the top of page 1) throughout Frank’s time while Frank was still being promoted as a “great coach”. In fact up to around the 80th minute of the Wolves game (a few weeks ago) there were comments on match threads saying that we should have stuck with Frank. Anyway I agree that it’s time we all moved on.

Very well said IMO. Frank's absolutely got away with one IMO.

 

[thfcsteff]

Those that have a downer on Frank seemingly won't concede an inch or ahow balance. His utilization of the front three in his time there was good to watch. They played quick and attacked as a pack, night and day to what we had here.

Lost Toney then Igor to injury and still ended up 5th top scorers in the league, played loads of central passes unlike here because they had a focus with Wissa, Mbuemo and Schade. Damsgaard was brilliant for them too.

Night and day to what we had here.

I watched Brentford a few times when they were playing different days to us and I was over (a friend of mine works there and my stepdad's a supporter). I saw very little possession football with few central, creative passes. They were a counter-press side all the way. He only got a tune out of Damsgaard in his last season or so; before that he didn't seem sure about him.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Those that have a downer on Frank seemingly won't concede an inch or ahow balance. His utilization of the front three in his time there was good to watch. They played quick and attacked as a pack, night and day to what we had here.

Lost Toney then Igor to injury and still ended up 5th top scorers in the league, played loads of central passes unlike here because they had a focus with Wissa, Mbuemo and Schade. Damsgaard was brilliant for them too.

Night and day to what we had here.

They played quick and attacked as a pack is entirely the point. Teams did not sit back against them, so he constructed a team that would take advantage of that space. He couldn’t do the same at Spurs. He needed to show intent and initiative.

I think it’s perfectly balanced to call it like it is and say Frank massively failed because he couldn’t scale to Spurs. RDZ showed what was possible with a Bentinha central midfield. And of course it wasn’t peak De Zerbi, because it would have been insane to try that with so little time and we needed results. But the intent and desire to control the game was clear, because De Zerbi can scale to Spurs.

In some ways it’s not a knock on Frank, because like Hodgson, like Moyes, these managers just don’t. To bring it back to the thread subject, I’m concerned that our leadership thought that for some reason Frank would be different. Probably because they saw clips of Brentford attacking quickly and equated that to good football, like Fabio did for Nuno, rather than understanding that seizing the initiative at a club like Spurs is paramount. Because we don’t get afforded that space.