Anyone else miss the international break? Lots of comments of sacking on the various socials are way to premature I think. Yesterday was the lowest of lows (was always going to be ups and downs) but he needs time to get players fit and hopefully the changes at the top will help us do better at players coming in. Don’t think we should be expecting much in January as rare you see to much but next summer will be when we gage the direction the new guys at the top want to go in. Our overall position at the moment is okay so see where we are end of season, European qualification through the league would be a very good season and if we can start to get a few wins at home then no reason that can’t happen.
I didn’t quite realise until after the game how much a lot of Spurs fans on social media don’t want Frank. Even some popular aggregator accounts are against him. I still believe he’s a very good manager but I’ve been underwhelmed significantly with some of his tactics in big games and in general a lot of performances have been pretty below par. Yesterday was an ultra low and compounding that onto the Chelsea debacle too, he needs to realise as a manager of Tottenham you can’t be putting in those performances. Whether you’ve been in the job 5 minutes or 5 years, they’re the games that have huge impacts on managers here. Ange had one of the worst derby records going and Frank can’t fall into the same category or he’ll suffer a similar fate. As for January, no excuses we need to act. The Lewis’/ ENIC are supposedly going to pump funds into the club so we need to use them. A LW has to be signed within the first few days, I genuinely cannot stand watching Odobert any more, I’m at a point where it’s getting Winks-esque now. He’s so **** it’s painful and being young isn’t a valid reason for being so bad. Plenty of young players show promise even when far from the finished article, there is almost nothing about Odobert that is giving the impression he’ll be a good player in x amount of time. Tel’s not too dissimilar either.
Frank saying we are a few months into this project whilst Arteta in year 6 He may well be right but he won’t be here in 6 years time I can promise him that I have witnessed ‘project’ syndrome at Spurs for a very long time and through a fair few managers Im not buying into this trying to tighten the defence before working on our attacking philosophy Im hearing about regarding Frank with us. We are absolutely toothless in attack, zero menace, we don’t attack with real purpose and intent. Always looking for Kudus is turning Kudus into a one trick pony too. Surely we work on attacking patterns of play during the week too. To me it just seems like managers join us and just get swallowed up by the task of the job and start to make excuses to buy time. He needs serious backing from upstairs or we will be back to another new project starting soon
He's clearly feeling pressure like he's never felt it before. This isn't Brentford where just being in the PL is enough credit in the bank to buy you endless goodwill and a statue. I don't mean that with any disrespect. But we have to stop the endless cycle of short termism. It has absolutely killed us since Poch left, aided and abetted by the fact that three of the managers we've had since then are dictionary definitions of short term thinking and always have been throughout their careers. Arsenal are where they are because despite fans howling for Arteta's sacking for the best part of three years, they've stuck by him and instead of pulling the plug, have simple gone out and bought him better players. We've literally done the opposite. Mourinho had no Eriksen and no replacement. Conte had no Vertonghen or Dele and no replacements. Ange had no Kane and no replacement. Frank has no Son and no replacement. The way Levy navigated the last 6 years was actually a disgrace.
I watched the Villa/Leeds game as I was waiting for the Spurs game I think Frank has proved his worth as a manager by what he did at Brentford. It's interesting to hear that he struggled a bit for the first 10 or so games when he joined Brentford. He's clearly a thinker and sometimes that's a problem. You can overthink situations and end up with egg on your face. He is the opposite of Ange who rejected the idea that you should plan for set pieces, for example, or change because you are down to 9 men. An idea that worked for 10 games until every other PL manager worked him out and reacted accordingly. Football is such a controlled game at the highest level nowadays that you have to have a manager who is tactically aware and Frank is certainly that. The game in the PL has reverted a bit in the last couple of seasons and IMO this has been caused by the refereeing. We have seen the game become much more physical, much as it used to be in the 70's and before, because refs. are letting strong tackles go. Too much managing the game for show and constant tinkering as well of course the influence of VAR all changing the game before our eyes. That results in Leeds yesterday looking a much better side than Spurs and Leeds lost of course and are relegation candidates. For a manager like Frank this is perhaps a bigger issue than some others, but whatever it is he needs to work it out quickly because you don't get time at Spurs.
What really sticks out at the moment is we are lacking in players who can actually hold onto the ball to relieve pressure Solanke is about the only player we have who can actually do that and of course he's injured, but what really sticks out is we don't have anyone in midfield who can receive the ball and play a reverse Uno card, either by dribbling through lines like Dembele could or by deftly taking it around players like a pre-injury Bentancur could, and that's why our midfield gets overrun Obviously there is the solution of removing Bissouma from the naughty step to address this short-term, or potentially going for a three-man midfield of Palhinha/Bergvall/Sarr, but the issue is that between Ange prioritising physicality over skill in midfielders coupled with Frank putting too much faith in some of the players he inherited (which Bissouma pissed away in record time) there's an obvious gap in our midfield
Managerial appointments - **** Transfers in - **** Transfers out - laughable Academy - lamentable Player fitness - Criminally bad Stadium sponsorship - non-existent League finishes - serious decline Yes, we won a trophy...but **** me, on any critical examination of the club's sporting performance, post-2019, is a ****ing disgrace...and that Daniel was allowed to perform at that level for 6 years shows the board's complete disinterest in the one thing that supporters care about. We can only hope that Vinai Venkatesham will be leading his team in a wholesale revolution, because the thing's utterly ****ed!
Calling for Frank to be sacked already is utter madness. What do people expect? This squad is where it should be when you look at injuries and quality available. Spurs are a mid table side atm and that’s where they are.
I agree and I think most Spurs fans do too. Look at the pre-match comments. None of us expected more than a draw from this game. A defeat would have come as no surprise to anyone. But like Chelsea and so many other games that mean a lot to the fans, it's the complete lack of fight and passion that pisses people off. That begins and ends with the manager. Even a lower league side is capable of making life difficult for top opposition. This was baffling about Ange too as he came across as the type of bloke you'd run through a wall for, yet when it came to pretty much every single big game or grudge match, we shat ourselves and ran away. It was humiliating. This question transcends injuries and quality. If you've got eleven men on the pitch and they are all supposedly elite athletes, the least they can do is run around a lot, mark their men and make the opposition feel every 50-50.
Exactly Its the manner of our performances teams much worse than us show more fight how is that? Wolves turned up for a fight and we scraped a draw against them If a team is up for it then we are in trouble let alone quality of the team in question
Before Frank was appointed, in fact during his time in the PL at Brentford before he was even in the frame for the Spurs job, the discourse was often similar - he’s a good manager and very tactically astute but at a bigger club the expectation is to be on the front foot and tweak things rather than make wholesale changes to how we play based on the opponent. While he’s mostly been consistent with 4atb (and to hear him speak he would say that 352 be 4321 isn’t that big a difference anyway) I think he’s struggling a bit to nail down how he wants to approach games outside the big picture stuff. It feels like he’s overthinking individual games based on the opponents rather than setting his stall out and trying to make Spurs one of the best teams at one or two things and winning that way. He’s obviously hamstrung with some quality issues in the squad and some of his best players in attacking positions being completely unavailable - we can’t discount these facts. They’re not his fault. But I don’t see the vision, and what he’s trying to build. It’s worth admitting as well that while both the Chelsea game and the NLD were horrible experiences as a Spurs fan, I found them upsetting in different ways. Arsenal this year are unfortunately a really good team and the current football meta seems to be lining up for them at the right time. Chelsea thought we could have beaten and just completely failed to turn up. That’s unacceptable. Frank has a lot of work to do and so do the club to support him. Sacking him now isn’t the answer but I think he needs to evolve. I actually think he’s found the early answer to how to make this current group of players he has available work - pack the midfield with physical runners and duel winners (Sarr, Bergvall, Palhinha), have one of Odobert/Simons/Kudus come in off the wings to play as attacking midfielders, and get the width from the winger on the other side and of the FBs pushing up. But the difference here at Spurs is that he has less time on the training ground (midweek games far more frequently) so he needs to commit to a way of playing and try and simplify the game for his players - he doesn’t have reliable weeks where he can drill players on the details of the opposition and make that work.
The sheer volume of international breaks this season clearly play their part in this, as having three weeks of domestic fixtures and one week of internationals every single month is only going to end up with there being less time on our training ground
I've seen nothing to suggest that ENIC have solved the issue on stadium covenants which is limiting our spending so can't see any way we can spend more than the usual amount in the next window. I hope I am wrong because spending more is the only way to improve performance.
Talk of replacing Frank at this point is ridiculous for all the good reasons outline above. I'd go so far as to say it shouldn't even be a consideration until this time next year. He deserves - and club needs - stability otherwise we are just in rinse/repeat. However...I'm not convinced, if we do see too many more passionless, uncommitted performances over the next few months like yesterday, that he will survive. In the meantime, the club has to support him for the next two windows and plug the gaping holes. But equally I wouldn't be too fast in writing off some of the recent arrivals, regardless of whether we overspent on them... Odobert was disappointing yesterday again, but it followed a much improved, game-saving cameo against United. Tel, likewise, continues to shine for France U21's, got a good goal in that same game and isn't short of effort. I don't think Simons improved his reputation against Arsenal, but didn't hide and tried to get on the front foot. He has looked more confident in recent games and scored for Netherlands in the break.
