Ange came into.......sorry what? Frank came into finishing 17th, record number of defeats of any team not to be relegated, most good players in the squad with long term injury issues and the whole top of the club ripped out after 20 years.....
When Frank came in, Levy was still chairman and no-one saw his abrupt departure coming (well, a few did, but factually he was firmly in place).
I have since given him plenty of leeway on that front -I started a thread dedicated to seeing the mitigating circumstances he was dealing with.
He arrived at a time when both Van De Ven and Romero were fit, Maddison was fit (his injury is obviously NOT TF’s fault in any way whatsoever), Solanke was at that time, fit.
He was dealt the cruel hand of Maddison and Solanke. Deki we already knew about. Sonny also knew he was leaving. We dithered around replacing the Maddison sized hole in the swuad; someone fudged up badly with MGW (again not TF’s fault obviously), he had previously passed on Eze, we got taken to the bridge by Palace on that, we finally went back for a player we’d circled early in the window (Xavi) and made it happen. Fair to say MGW was TF’s guy and somewhere that got messed up. So yes, unfortunate for him. When the news of Solanke hit, we got Kolo Muani on loan; not a rookie, a World Cup Finalist from PSG. So he went into the season with Richy, Muani (who then did get injured, so unfortunate for TF), Odobert, Johnson, Kudus, and Tel as pure attacking options (you can place Xavi there to if you want). It’s not the worst complement of attacking players in the league, certainly not as bog-standard as some here want to say.
I do genuinely appreciate that your perspective is certainly one to be taken.
My perspective is he came into a squad which had just achieved a trophy, let alone a European trophy, which had suffered outrageously through the season and learnt so much from that pain, and which was primed to dare and do, fused with a little more of the pragmatism we saw employed at the end of last season only done so much better and with more fluidity based on Frank’s history. Add to that his reputation of developing young talent and bringing it to new levels, plus an ownership which was surely primed to support him, and I think he actually stepped into an excellent situation for a manager of his potential ceiling.
I think the person who has had the hardest time transitioning to the club is Thomas Frank. He has spoken (quite rightly too) about the inability to do much work on training pitch because we’re playing every three days or so much of the season (Europe, etc). Frank has never had his working methods challenged like that before. He’s never seen schedule interfere so much with fluid preparation. I think it is a massive shock, and as such, perhaps we are seeing him sit in the ‘risk averse’ spaces as he tries to wrap his head around everything. It’s a whirlwind, plus we’re a club that has attracted media drama for many years.
Time will obviously tell how it all shakes out.
