Thomas Frank & Johan Lange (& Fabio Paratici) Watch

David pleat at luton in the 1980s, Redknapp at pompey, pochettino at Southampton and Nuno at wolves all kind of fit that description

 

Norhing to do with injuries then?

 

I had forgotten about David Pleat but the other three had too short a time in their previous jobs to be sure they were outperforming and Brentford were never close to the PL before Frank whereas Portsmouth, Southampton and Wolves have always been close.

 

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From the official Twatter: He's here.

 

Let the "white screen" theories begin ...

 

I assume we'll have an interview at some point in the next 24 hours, possibly this evening.

 

Reel on Insta just dropped. He's obviously back from his holidays .....

 

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"Make sure you get that stupid Crypto **** in, Thomas."

 

Shouldn't the "Pacman" image be navy blue ... ??

< "white screen" theories >

 

Finally! An excuse to post this!

 

Frank's talk of turning our home into a fortress is already promising

And not just because 13 of the 35 points we got last season were form our first seven home games...

 

"If you don't take risk, you also take risk".

Have a feeling we'll be seeing and hearing a lot more of that line over the months and (hopefully) years under Frank.

He says that in the video he does for the Coaches' Voice for his victory over Arsenal a few years back (best YouTube channel btw, love listening to managers explaining their gameplans from key victories).

 

If you want to do something quick, you can go alone. If you want to do something big or achieve something big, you go together.

Also worth noting who he namechecked in the interview: Solanke, Bentancur, Maddison, Bergvall, Gray, Odobert, Udogie

 

Ok Thomas Frank. Solid talk. Glad to have him in place. We could do, and have done, far worse.

Could be the most sensible managerial appointment since Pochettino.


Obviously unrealistic, but does anybody else wonder what would happen if we had Ange as the manager and Thomas as the assistant?

Ange's heart with Thomas's head would be a dream combo for sure.


I still can't quite get over Levy taking about 'we want to win the premier league and the CL'. Did he seriously think we had the squad to win the league last season?

I hope Thomas put him straight about what is necessary personnel wise.

We go again.

 

I think Bentancur and Maddison could be excellent under Frank. Solanke I’ve been less sold on but his work with Toney and Wissa gives me hope he can make Solanke a potential 20 goal striker, as a “big six” club and a team with (supposedly) big aspirations we need to have a lethal front man capable of turning losses into draws and draws into wins.

As for the youth, Bergvall we all know is already in and around the XI whilst Udogie’s a key player. Gray and Odobert definitely need some work though, especially Odobert. I think we should even consider Premier League loans for the pair, especially if we sign another senior forward and midfielder which seems likely according to journos. It’s gonna be hard seeing where significant minutes for the pair arises with added competition and less chances for rotation due to the demands of the CL in comparison to the EL.

 

As with all his predecessors, I will ignore the intro chat,
and see on-pitch what Frank achieves with the squad.

Especially squad management for all the overlapping
campaigns between now and february.

 

It's also interesting because it suggests that he's more interesting in a squad pulling in the same direction instead of one or two players carrying the team

We've had the latter happening a couple of times in the past twenty years, with the Keane/Berbatov pairing carrying the Jol/Ramos team far more than was comfortable, while the Kane/Son pairing were doing hard carry both for when the ubermensch was unable to upgrade the squad due to Lockdown finances or when Conte's dogmatic approach was self-sabotaging the team

Ange was certainly pointing us in the right direction for creating a team who could compete, but his inability to adapt to the injury crisis exacerbated the issue of more and more managers figuring out his tactics so instead it was the Europa League papering over the cracks where, ironically, he adopted the more pragmatic formula