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Thomas Frank - Former Head Coach

Bishop said:
What they say doesn't matter, it's what they do that does.

What the new man says in public matters little, it's what he says through players in private and the instructions he gives them on the training field that matters.
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Actions will always speak louder than words, of course.
However, taking the action of speaking positive words is a massive step towards getting real actions/reactions from a dressing room.
That is a proven fact in football (and, indeed, life).

I absolutely disagree with the second bit bold-faced, especially in the modern era where initial perception is (almost sadly) everything. It is absolutely vital that whoever comes in says the 'right' things in public, if only to warm the stands up and get people believing. Obviously the second part stands as fact, but it is not seperable from the first bit. ALL of it is important, it all forms the overall temperature and attitude.
 
"Frank had arrived at Tottenham with a “no d---heads” policy that he cultivated at Brentford, but implementing that in north London was not as easy as he might have anticipated or liked."

:tearsofjoy: Tell me we've got a squad full of dingdongheads without telling me we have a squad full of dingdongheads. Unbelievable...
 
Kane said:
I hear you. Such is our need then, and with apparently such very limited viable options, we'd best hope that he doesn't stay where he's at, or get his head turned by someone else, that he doesn't move back to South America, or that he simply just retires, etc.
Of course, our current Board saw fit to interview more than 30 candidates last time so maybe they see it differently:)
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Just the fact that we had as many as 30 candidates tells me how badly run we are. The fact that we thought it was a good thing to actually publicise the fact that we had absolutely no idea of who should take over from Ange and no immediate shortlist just highlights that fact even more.

An absolute shambles. The opposite of how well run clubs like Brighton or Bournemouth or, dare I say it, the Woolwich Wanderers are run.

I suspect we also have no idea who we’ll bring in now either, despite the fact that we’ve had a 3 month run up of seeing how appalling Frank was.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
"Frank had arrived at Tottenham with a “no d---heads” policy that he cultivated at Brentford, but implementing that in north London was not as easy as he might have anticipated or liked."

:tearsofjoy:Tell me we've got a squad full of dingdongheads without telling me we have a squad full of dingdongheads. Unbelievable...
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Find it completely believable myself.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
"Frank had arrived at Tottenham with a “no d---heads” policy that he cultivated at Brentford, but implementing that in north London was not as easy as he might have anticipated or liked."

:tearsofjoy:Tell me we've got a squad full of dingdongheads without telling me we have a squad full of dingdongheads. Unbelievable...
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If only they were “intelligent kuntz” at least but clearly most of ours remain of the stupid variety!
 
thfcsteff said:
Actions will always speak louder than words, of course.
However, taking the action of speaking positive words is a massive step towards getting real actions/reactions from a dressing room.
That is a proven fact in football (and, indeed, life).

I absolutely disagree with the second bit bold-faced, especially in the modern era where initial perception is (almost sadly) everything. It is absolutely vital that whoever comes in says the 'right' things in public, if only to warm the stands up and get people believing. Obviously the second part stands as fact, but it is not seperable from the first bit. ALL of it is important, it all forms the overall temperature and attitude.
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I've heard or read somewhere yesterday that during his first press conference, Frank said something along the lines of 'one thing I can guarantee is that we will be losing games'. If he did (can't be bothered to check) that's a rookie mistake particularly when coming after someone like Postecoglou, who used to say the exact opposite.

Turns out they were both right, but there's things people want to hear and there's things people don't want to hear - regardless of whether they're true or not. For instance, I'm not sure telling someone who's been diagnosed with cancer, 'well, you've got a 66% of dying but hey, you never know what might happen' is a very good idea...
 
Mr Gogolak said:
I've heard or read somewhere yesterday that during his first press conference, Frank said something along the lines of 'one thing I can guarantee is that we will be losing games'. If he did (can't be bothered to check) that's a rookie mistake particularly when coming after someone like Postecoglou, who used to say the exact opposite.

Turns out they were both right, but there's things people want to hear and there's things people don't want to hear - regardless of whether they're true or not. For instance, I'm not sure telling someone who's been diagnosed with cancer, 'well, you've got a 66% of dying but hey, you never know what might happen' is a very good idea...
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I’d always rather honesty myself.

We only have to look at the state of the world to see where baseless boosterism gets you.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
I've heard or read somewhere yesterday that during his first press conference, Frank said something along the lines of 'one thing I can guarantee is that we will be losing games'. If he did (can't be bothered to check) that's a rookie mistake particularly when coming after someone like Postecoglou, who used to say the exact opposite.

Turns out they were both right, but there's things people want to hear and there's things people don't want to hear - regardless of whether they're true or not. For instance, I'm not sure telling someone who's been diagnosed with cancer, 'well, you've got a 66% of dying but hey, you never know what might happen' is a very good idea...
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He did say that, I remember it. Personally didn't have a problem with that, but as is always the way in today's world every little thing said and done by the manager gets dissected and turned into something bigger than it really is....
 
I don't have a problem with that either, but a) I'm not a professional football player and b) saying that when managing a group of players who just won a European competition with a manager who told them the exact opposite was certainly a faux pas. It would have been ok if he had us challenging for a Top 6 spot (we would have been in the 'can't win all the time' category) but with hindsight, when you're hovering above the relegation zone, it really makes you look like a loser and an idiot to boot.

Of course, it was true - nobody's questioning that - but it was a poor move to try and mitigate expectation at a club like Spurs. Saying we would lose game didn't protect him at all when things turned sour. On the other hand, if had promised to win games, nobody would have held that against team if we'd been challenging for a European spot.

At the end of the day, what you say in a conference press is all about perceptions and a sentence like that certainly sends the wrong message, even more so when you're coming from what people perceive as a 'smaller' club.
 
DTA said:
You think Arteta plays in the front foot? Or even more ridiculously, is similar in style to Wenger?
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Yes they do. Maybe not in every single game but by and large they look to take the game to the opposition, they’re just not very good at creating chances in open play. He’s not a carbon copy of Wenger but there’s more of a similarity than Ange to flippin Frank.
 
thfcsteff said:
Indeed, The Telegraph is a rag and it is also yet another ingredient of what was going on coming to light. Someone/some people have fed that within hours. It's trashy but it isn't a lie.

I said a few weeks back I was happy as a fan Romero spoke up, and that the club should've fined him, made a statement, and got him under control. He was the biggest public example of how flaccid the 'leadership' was, but it's been rotting fast for a while. Some will say its the players, some will say management, some will say Levy built this mess, some will say the Lewis family thought it was easy to run a club until they started getting abused themselves. Many parts to the rot, but the fact is the air and vibe needs a supercharge and the bloke who was in charge of the players simply wasn't. IMO this should've happened at Xmas, before selling Johnson, before buying Gallagher. And the job needs to be completed in the summer with Lange's dismissal. I think it is clear the Lewis family have acted, not the 'dynamic duo'.

The drama's only warming up IMO. Right now, it is about finding 4 wins and 12 points, albeit if 9 of those come against Leeds, Forest and Palace we'll be fine with just 9...
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bang on as usual Steffers.

There were issues with Levy, but there is no way that he would have put up with Romero's personal media campaign, or a limp wristed manager not able to get things cooking.

I don't mind the swap of Gallagher for Johnson in all honesty - Johnson is not exactly tearing it up at Palace and must wonder what he's joined, even with our car crash scenario. In Gallagher we have a player who can be a proper club captain until Archie is ready to take the job on.

Lange needs to be binned now, there's no sense in having a guy involved in appointing the new manager and recruiting who is a dead stick, and Lange is a dead stick - Paratici saw to that.
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
I think it’s more that we are quite a unique proposition as a club, in that we have expectations from the fans and board to try and be CL regulars, but we will never be the 4th or 5th highest wage bill. We are also treated by oppositions like a top club who they cede possession to, but we haven’t yet been able to spend at the level of the truly top sides in the league to buy the players that would consistently break those teams down.

So what do we do? We need someone who plays elite level football in possession, but also loved working with younger players and establishing a culture and standards that make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. It’s not like Poch is the one and only, but I do believe that if we want that culture to endure over the long term, it’s probably best to double down on one person. The right person. And the great thing about Poch is that he loves us, so he would actually turn down bigger clubs to see this through, to be our Fergie.

I don’t think he’s the only one. I think Ange was close in a lot of ways, but he doesn’t have proven longevity and his commitment to one way meant he needed the players to do it, so there would always be wild swings if he didn’t have them available. Poch is more adaptable, and genuinely pragmatic but without playing mid table football against beatable sides.

But yeah. It’s the fact that we should be minimum 6th and with expectations of more that makes it so hard to find the right profile of manager for us. It’s a rare shape.
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The exact same issue affects us in the transfer market....we are a big club but below top level.

As Louise Wener would say we're 'such an inbetweener'
 
thfcsteff said:
Actions will always speak louder than words, of course.
However, taking the action of speaking positive words is a massive step towards getting real actions/reactions from a dressing room.
That is a proven fact in football (and, indeed, life).

I absolutely disagree with the second bit bold-faced, especially in the modern era where initial perception is (almost sadly) everything. It is absolutely vital that whoever comes in says the 'right' things in public, if only to warm the stands up and get people believing. Obviously the second part stands as fact, but it is not seperable from the first bit. ALL of it is important, it all forms the overall temperature and attitude.
Click to expand...
IMO you are absolutely right Steff. I don't know when it started to happen, I think it's a fairly recent thing, but managers' pre-match press conferences are now big events where things get dissected and analysed like never before.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
I've heard or read somewhere yesterday that during his first press conference, Frank said something along the lines of 'one thing I can guarantee is that we will be losing games'. If he did (can't be bothered to check) that's a rookie mistake particularly when coming after someone like Postecoglou, who used to say the exact opposite.

Turns out they were both right, but there's things people want to hear and there's things people don't want to hear - regardless of whether they're true or not. For instance, I'm not sure telling someone who's been diagnosed with cancer, 'well, you've got a 66% of dying but hey, you never know what might happen' is a very good idea...
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Go watch the quote. I read it first and thought, "ah it probably wasn't as bad as it reads" but it was bizarre. And then he goes on in the same breath to praise Arsenal 2003/2004 for not losing a game before realising he shouldn't be praising Arsenal as the Spurs manager.

It was really, really strange stuff that will get scrutinised to death at a club like ours. Frank's a nice man and I can almost see his train of thought but how he articulated it was suicide stuff. Similar to the "not real fans" quote. What he was plainly trying to do there is protect his goalkeeper and praise the fans who stuck behind the team and Vicario (which would have been the majority). But the articulation is so poor that people focus on the part of the quote that can be used against him. That's the sort of scrutiny you get at Spurs that you probably don't at Brentford.
 
thfcsteff said:
Whoever comes in, here's what they should say,

"This is a giant club having a tough moment. The talent here is unbelievable, the supporters here are among the best in football, the stadium is world class, we are in the Champions League, and we all need to take a deep breath and get back to who and Tottenham Hotspur are, play football our way, and when all those factors combine, this period will soon be a distant memory. The talent here is unbelievable, so there is not a shadow of doubt that they will have the opportunity to show that under me..."

I don't care if it is 100% accurate, it is positive, it is a statement, and it gets away from rubbish like 'you will lose games of football' and 'are we really a CL club? We finished 17th last season'.

I am also available for wedding speeches and presentations...
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Don't agree. That speech has been had by and with every manager along this path. They've all said the Ra, Ra things people want to hear. Like so many fans, I'm sick of the lip service at this point. Frank even tried in subtle ways to have the honesty conversation but got shot down. That is OUR club's cultural and denial problem, not his. The new manager needs to also talk about the boundaries of being a Spurs manager. Hopefully he would also say that is a talented bunch that our not reaching their potential and talk about his own expectations on them to find new levels.

I want the new manager to start with the honest conversation. I'll respect him more if he talks about the potential and the hard work. I'll respect him more if he lays down some changing room boundaries and talks about the minimum he expects from every player and coach.

You can summarise Spurs to one posters comment the other day "I see Muani has come on for his weekly 20 min jog". We've watched this with so many of our players, proving at least to me that the performances won't change until we stop making this losing culture perfectly acceptable. Our players do things that they just know would never be acceptable at other clubs.

It's sort of why I'm intrigued by De Zerbi. Do we need an arm round the shoulder type or are we now done with that? We've talked a lot about he stylistic fit with the football philosophy. We obviously need that. However, we do need to think about the personality type we need. Ultimately, Poch's players played for him until they didn't. Then it turned ugly. It's turned ugly very quickly for every manager since. That is a club cultural problem. That is to do with the players not having our club charter in their belief system. It's because Tavistock/ENIC allow that culture in their organisations. So we need a motivator. We need a culture obsessed manager and we need a major tactician in the style of football we want to play. Would de Zerbi create that siege mentality we see at other clubs with managers like Pep, Arteta and Emery?
 
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