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Thomas Frank - Head Coach

Baleforce said:
I think it’s madness to get upset about either of those things.

Completely illogical.
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I'm not upset about it, I find it funny, I have a sense of humour. I can laugh at myself, just as well really.
Just as i don't agree with the fuss over the red aia and don't like the "stand up if hate arsenal" chant, I do however have to accept that a reasonable amount of our support do see these issues as important and if I need to win them over (and frank really does) then I should at the very avoid them.
 
glasgowspur said:
I'm not upset about it, I find it funny, I have a sense of humour. I can laugh at myself, just as well really.
Just as i don't agree with the fuss over the red aia and don't like the "stand up if hate arsenal" chant, I do however have to accept that a reasonable amount of our support do see these issues as important and if I need to win them over (and frank really does) then I should at the very avoid them.
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Nah, we need to wind those knuckle daggers up so much that they fudge off.

We have so many thick as brick fans.
 
tommysvr said:
I'm not one for conspiracies and could totally by the "I didn't even look" explanation, but is he just picking up random cups and drinking from them?? Seems even weirder than the gum chewing for me...

(I should also say......I really don't see the cup thing as an issue at all and agree it's likely just people causing more mischief.)
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Didn't he say someone used the cup and handed him an Espresso from it, he took it out and drank from it? That there is usually an excess of disposable cups in away dressing rooms?

Not to sound like I am leaping at his defence, not that its a bad think to defend the manager of your club, but I can say I rarely look at the pattern or branding of a cup if I am at a conference and its handed to me and I have been to 1000s of conferences. The cup could say "the drinker of this cup, despite being super sexy is a cnut" and despite being right, I would be oblivious
 
MartyFunkhouser said:
Didn't he say someone used the cup and handed him an Espresso from it, he took it out and drank from it? That there is usually an excess of disposable cups in away dressing rooms?

Not to sound like I am leaping at his defence, not that its a bad think to defend the manager of your club, but I can say I rarely look at the pattern or branding of a cup if I am at a conference and its handed to me and I have been to 1000s of conferences. The cup could say "the drinker of this cup, despite being super sexy is a cnut" and despite being right, I would be oblivious
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Yeah, fair explanation. There might have been a stack of cups in the dressing room from Arsenal playing there the other day. No biggie, move on.
 
We're back to the 90s again, albeit with more competent players minus the real stars we had back then. At the time, you entered every season thinking that if Anderton and King could stay injury free, if Ginola could add some end product to his game, if Sheringham kept scoring, maybe we could qualify for Europe. Then, a few months later, you were stuck watching Andy Sinton, Ruel Fox and Stuart Nethercott run the show.

These days, we don't even have difference-makers. Just average players, with a couple of guys who could turn out to be good players in a few years' time.

Regardless of Frank's future, once again, we're faced with a massive mentality issue. In the 90s, when a manager was sacked, you read about players saying 'We have to hold our hand up and admit we're responsible'. And then... nothing. Just more of the same. Like him or not, Mourinho didn't take brick from the players, he demanded commitment from them. When he was sacked, Kane and Son (our only world-class players at the time, coincidentally) were the only ones to express their disappointment.

Then we moved on to Conte, who also demanded commitment and ended up blowing a gasket in front of the press.

None of them were blameless and their style of football left a lot to be desired but you can't argue that they are/were elite managers. Nobody in their right mind would compare them to Postecoglou or Frank.

Likewise, Pochettino turned things around when he oversaw a significant power shift inside the changing room.

At the end of the day, you can hire the best managers but if the mentality's not right, it won't make a difference. The club culture is completely wrong and so far, nobody's been able to address that. We thought winning a trophy would shake things up but it didn't. We can argue for ages about the quality of the squad, whether it's good enough for Top 6, Top 10, Top whatever but when we sign players from other clubs, clubs that are supposed to be weaker but somehow end up above us in the table, suddenly, their worst traits come out (Bissouma and Ndombele say hello).

A complete overhaul of a squad requires either a lot of investment and faith in the manager (won't happen) or extreme circumstances that forces someone's hand. So far, we've had neither.
 
Where the hell did an Arsenal cup even come from?! We're playing away at Bournemouth, doesn't make sense.

He obviously hasn't done it on purpose but it's just weird
 
Mr Gogolak said:
We're back to the 90s again, albeit with more competent players minus the real stars we had back then. At the time, you entered every season thinking that if Anderton and King could stay injury free, if Ginola could add some end product to his game, if Sheringham kept scoring, maybe we could qualify for Europe. Then, a few months later, you were stuck watching Andy Sinton, Ruel Fox and Stuart Nethercott run the show.

These days, we don't even have difference-makers. Just average players, with a couple of guys who could turn out to be good players in a few years' time.

Regardless of Frank's future, once again, we're faced with a massive mentality issue. In the 90s, when a manager was sacked, you read about players saying 'We have to hold our hand up and admit we're responsible'. And then... nothing. Just more of the same. Like him or not, Mourinho didn't take brick from the players, he demanded commitment from them. When he was sacked, Kane and Son (our only world-class players at the time, coincidentally) were the only ones to express their disappointment.

Then we moved on to Conte, who also demanded commitment and ended up blowing a gasket in front of the press.

None of them were blameless and their style of football left a lot to be desired but you can't argue that they are/were elite managers. Nobody in their right mind would compare them to Postecoglou or Frank.

Likewise, Pochettino turned things around when he oversaw a significant power shift inside the changing room.

At the end of the day, you can hire the best managers but if the mentality's not right, it won't make a difference. The club culture is completely wrong and so far, nobody's been able to address that. We thought winning a trophy would shake things up but it didn't. We can argue for ages about the quality of the squad, whether it's good enough for Top 6, Top 10, Top whatever but when we sign players from other clubs, clubs that are supposed to be weaker but somehow end up above us in the table, suddenly, their worst traits come out (Bissouma and Ndombele say hello).

A complete overhaul of a squad requires either a lot of investment and faith in the manager (won't happen) or extreme circumstances that forces someone's hand. So far, we've had neither.
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Good post. I’ve said for a while that we’re back to the late 90s/early 2000s but we don’t even have a Ginola type player that gets you out of your seat. The closest is VDV.
 
Bishop said:
They are not bloody excellent. What is it with an of these superfluous wording when it comes to describing our players. Baresi was excellent, Maldini was excellent, King was excellent, Jan & Toby were excellent. The current pair are only decent.

How a defender like VDV who was absolutely in mans land for the first goal and is so easily beaten 1 on 1 is considered excellent is beyond me.

I'll reiterate again. We have seen excellent, we have seen great defenders. We know what that looks like, at no point in Romero's 5 years or VDV 3 seasons have either them actually consistently hit those levels. A player rating isn't about some one time performance it's what you get from them week after week averaged out and what we've gotten from them in their time only averages out to decent or at a push good. Nothing more.
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You can't claim that I "superfluously" described Romero and VdV as excellent and then bucket Jan, Toby and Ledley with Baresi and Maldini under the same heading. Baresi and Maldini were two of the best to do it in the history of the game. Between them they won 13 Serie A titles (at a time when that was the elite league in the world) and 8 Champions League titles and were the cornerstones of arguably the greatest defence ever seen.

Toby, Jan and Ledley between them won 5 Dutch titles and no Champions Leagues. Outside of the Tottenham fan base, no one would mention Toby and Jan as even one of the great partnerships of the Premier League era. Ledley, a wonderful player, sadly never fulfilled his potential because of injuries. That's not to say that they weren't excellent players in their own right but if you're going to criticise the use of language as superfluous, you can't go ahead and group all those lads together with Baresi and Maldini.

As for Romero and VdV, it's hard to judge them because, as long as they've been here, we've been a dysfunctional brickshow. Probably the only real period of stability Romero had was when Conte was in charge at the end of his first season. In that spell, we conceded something like 8 in 14 games (albeit Romero missed the last 3) and he looked excellent. After that, he's been excellent at times and very rash at other times. For me, some of that is on the player and his suspect temperament but he's operating in a very unstable environment which doesn't help. Arguably the greatest player ever to play the game describes Romero as the best defender in the world. Now, some of that will be hyperbole because they're mates but he's not sticking his neck on the line like that for a lad who is "decent or at a push good". He just isn't.

I said from the minute VdV came in that he had limitations but, in the context of this Premier League, I think he's an excellent player. His recovery pace is a valuable asset and, for me, he'd get into most teams in the league without doubt - including some of the top 6 (as would Romero).

The other thing I'd say about them is that they had the balls, mentality and nous to approach Ange about how best to win the Europa League and were trusted by Ange to implement that plan on the pitch. Not only that, they executed their vision perfectly (even if it was ugly on the eye). That suggests to me that they are more than "decent or at a push good".

The best thing about our squad at the moment is the CBs and I think you'll hear most pundits say exactly that. They are being failed by the club and we'll only realise it when they are gone.
 
Mabspurs said:
The problem is not that you buy a backup who becomes the starter... it's the quality of the replacement. Brighton sold Caicedo and bought Baleba... no difference. And that's just one example. But they have a PROPER recruitment - not our incompetent bunch that we are lumped with
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They are good at recruitment for sure. Not sure Baleba was instantly as good as Caicedo.

What they do well is recruiting players with a lot of potential and then developing players over a bit of time. Maybe Baleba was an exception to that, I don't actually know how well he did initially.

We're trying to do a similar thing, recruiting younger players with a lot of potential. It takes time though, Brighton are now reaping the benefits of work done many years ago.

I think we too will see benefits of this approach. But more so if there's a coherent strategy and identity to the team, something we've definitely lacked and something I struggle to see how Frank represents a good version of.
 
Mcfee said:
I feel for TF now. The issues are clearly bigger than him, or individual players for that matter.
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I definitely feel for him too.

But that does raise the question of how good of a fit is he for this job. How much of his success at Brentford was down to him and how much was down to the circumstances around him.

He's clearly a good manager. But we need a manager that's suited for our circumstances.
 
veryoldspur said:
No I wasn't an Ange fan, and believe he should have gone at the end of the first season. The fact is we are sitting 14th with a squad that is probably top 6, and there is only one reason for that. He attacks the fans, and now drinks out of Arsenal branded cups. He can set up the team to draw, but when he attempts to actually win a game we lose. His level was Brentford, and that's where he should be. I wasn't Frank out until the Bournemouth game, but I believe he can actually get us relegated. West Ham will be a 6 pointer now

As far as a replacement, I certainly don't want Poch, so it's down to the club to find someone decent, who I don't know
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Sorry mate, but in my book any assessment that we have a top 6 squad borders on delusional!

We haven't had a top 6 squad for almost a decade but we had two world class strikers who - single handedly - carried the team and papered the cracks. Now that both are gone, we are seeing the true picture....
 
kb 1984 said:
He bought up Baresi & Maldini seriously are we comparing VDV to them. No one is going to get close to king & the only players i can think of who have were Gough shame he wanted Rangers & Judas. again i think it's unfair to compare VDV to King is there anyone in the premier league right know that is better than king. in my humble opinion i think they are still very good but not Maldini, Baresi & King level if those players were available i'd definitely buy them sadly they don't exist
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Well don't call them excellent then. Excellent is a level of performance, it's all comparative. I know you didn't call them excellent but c'mon let's at least be realistic. If someone really thinks they are excellent then I don't know what they are watching.
 
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