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Thomas Frank - Head Coach

Lilbaz said:
Was mourinhos style of play much different to george grahams?
Peps style wasn't much different to wengers.
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Style of play - not really. But it wasn't the style that marked him out as different, it was the pre-match prep and the in-match game management.

Mourinho brought two things to the Premier League from his time at Porto and previously at Barcelona - tactical adaptation to the opponent (involving intense drills and opposition analysis), and tactical periodisation as developed by Victor Frade, where managing the moments in any game to employ maximum energy and movement and when to conserve energy was key.

Mourinho's teams understood periodisation in a way no manager on English shores could equal, until well after his heyday.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Style of play - not really. But it wasn't the style that marked him out as different, it was the pre-match prep and the in-match game management.

Mourinho brought two things to the Premier League from his time at Porto and previously at Barcelona - tactical adaptation to the opponent (involving intense drills and opposition analysis), and tactical periodisation as developed by Victor Frade, where managing the moments in any game to employ maximum energy and movement and when to conserve energy was key.

Mourinho's teams understood periodisation in a way no manager on English shores could equal, until well after his heyday.
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Periodisation was only one week a month.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Style of play - not really. But it wasn't the style that marked him out as different, it was the pre-match prep and the in-match game management.

Mourinho brought two things to the Premier League from his time at Porto and previously at Barcelona - tactical adaptation to the opponent (involving intense drills and opposition analysis), and tactical periodisation as developed by Victor Frade, where managing the moments in any game to employ maximum energy and movement and when to conserve energy was key.

Mourinho's teams understood periodisation in a way no manager on English shores could equal, until well after his heyday.
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There has always been an argument that Jose cannot shift as we have moved from Gen X to millennials, to gen Z to the new alphas. In many ways, Jose wanted to be a Clough or Fergie but lost his way with so many situations with these young players. A lot of the time, narcissism is a nurtured state in people and you can see the traits in Jose building over the time he's been in management. That's why we preferred him early career and also why he was more effective. He was almost a cheeky chappy in the early days.

I genuinely believe Jose is a fantastic tactical manager. Where it all breaks with him is his own personality traits that only work with certain types of players. I think more and more players are doing what KDB did 11 years ago where he realised what was happening between him and his manager in each horrible dialogue. Once you have that lightbulb moment, you placate (yourself) with the narcissist, move away and then prosper elsewhere. I think more and more players have the smarts and the experienced older heads around them giving that advice about how life is with the man.

I genuinely believe that there was a cross section of the Spurs changing room that had this lightbulb moment with him. Some paid him lip service, others were totally bought in. Ultimately, he lost our changing room with his behaviours and the THFC leadership team did the rest, as they saw how dangerous he can be. Chelsea obviously took their own actions after the club doctor fiasco which was all on Jose.

I always think the Jose conversation is bigger than football. He is just not someone you want to be around.
 
Great set up, loved the energy, press, the shape. Well done TF, we’ve missed that for so long.

Thing that let it down was the substitutions…personnel
and timing meant we lost that energy almost instantly. It’s what cost us the trophy imo, but I saw enough tonight against one of the best teams in the world to be very encouraged by TF’s influence already.
 
Aldo said:
Great set up, loved the energy, press, the shape. Well done TF, we’ve missed that for so long.

Thing that let it down was the substitutions…personnel
and timing meant we lost that energy almost instantly. It’s what cost us the trophy imo, but I saw enough tonight against one of the best teams in the world to be very encouraged by TF’s influence already.
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But the guys he subbed were knackered
They were the right subs
Tel was poor but it happens
Gray struggled against Vitinha and Ruiz.. wow not shocked
Solanke needs minutes to get fit
We can dissect that game many ways but football is a squad game and some teams have spent £B to get their squad in the state it is over many many years
 
glasgowspur said:
Not just to get it back on topic, well done thomas!
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For sure. And it makes a lot more sense now why we're after a senior center back, if his plan is to play three at the back more often.

Kudus as a striker also surprised me in a positive way - him and Richy were menaces in that first half, clearly something they'd been working on. Lots of good work on the training ground, looks like. :)
 
Bedfordspurs said:
But the guys he subbed were knackered
They were the right subs
Tel was poor but it happens
Gray struggled against Vitinha and Ruiz.. wow not shocked
Solanke needs minutes to get fit
We can dissect that game many ways but football is a squad game and some teams have spent £B to get their squad in the state it is over many many years
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It was a major European trophy game (TF’s first) and we were 2-0 up… not the time to be handing out minutes to players to “get them fit”.
 
DubaiSpur said:
For sure. And it makes a lot more sense now why we're after a senior center back, if his plan is to play three at the back more often.

Kudus as a striker also surprised me in a positive way - him and Richy were menaces in that first half, clearly something they'd been working on. Lots of good work on the training ground, looks like. :)
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Kudus wasn’t playing striker per se but was obviously an attacking outlet
We won’t play pike this much I hope but it’s great to have it in the locker
 
Muttley said:
I genuinely believe that there was a cross section of the Spurs changing room that had this lightbulb moment with him. Some paid him lip service, others were totally bought in. Ultimately, he lost our changing room with his behaviours and the THFC leadership team did the rest, as they saw how dangerous he can be. Chelsea obviously took their own actions after the club doctor fiasco which was all on Jose.

I always think the Jose conversation is bigger than football. He is just not someone you want to be around.
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For sure mate. To be honest, I think he was always a narcissist, but as you say, it's the players that have changed. Even in just the last ten years, the difference in terms of acumen, wisdom and maturity amongst players in 2025 compared to 2015 is huge. And a lot of that comes from the people players now have around them, and growing up in an environment where unhealthy behaviours are named and dealt with in a healthier way.

Mourinho relied on absolute belief in himself and his methods, without question. Where he had that, he did well. But as players increasingly grew more questioning and less ready to blindly buy into him, he suffered and could never adapt to an environment where he needed to explain himself and generate buy-in with more than his personality and his CV.

To be fair to him, he's said it himself - he doesn't fit with modern players.
 
DubaiSpur said:
For sure mate. To be honest, I think he was always a narcissist, but as you say, it's the players that have changed. Even in just the last ten years, the difference in terms of acumen, wisdom and maturity amongst players in 2025 compared to 2015 is huge. And a lot of that comes from the people players now have around them, and growing up in an environment where unhealthy behaviours are named and dealt with in a healthier way.

Mourinho relied on absolute belief in himself and his methods, without question. Where he had that, he did well. But as players increasingly grew more questioning and less ready to blindly buy into him, he suffered and could never adapt to an environment where he needed to explain himself and generate buy-in with more than his personality and his CV.

To be fair to him, he's said it himself - he doesn't fit with modern players.
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Mou earned the right to be a narcissist
What he did at Porto is more than any manager has done in Europe since
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Mou earned the right to be a narcissist
What he did at Porto is more than any manager has done in Europe since
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Oh, no doubt. I still think he's the best manager in my lifetime (SAF aside) - even above Guardiola, because he achieved things with teams that weren't favorites, like Porto in 2004 and then Inter winning the CL in 2010 when no one expected them to.

We got him at the tail end when his magic had run out. But part of me wishes he'd taken us on after he left Chelsea the first time - if I recall correctly, Levy tried to get him then and he turned us down because Abramovich had him on gardening leave terms that prevented him taking up another job in the UK.

Peak Jose was unstoppable. A narcissist, but one that backed up his puffed up ego.
 
Frank on switching up his tactics -

"When did you decide to use that 3-5-2 system and what specifically did you work on to help the players adapt to it?

Probably decided that the day after Bayern. I knew we had to do something a little bit different against PSG. It was a special operation. In medical terms, the operation succeeded but the patient died. So not that good in the end. But we worked on a gameplan that was a little bit different and (it was) very close to succeeding."

:D:D:D
 
DubaiSpur said:
For sure mate. To be honest, I think he was always a narcissist, but as you say, it's the players that have changed. Even in just the last ten years, the difference in terms of acumen, wisdom and maturity amongst players in 2025 compared to 2015 is huge. And a lot of that comes from the people players now have around them, and growing up in an environment where unhealthy behaviours are named and dealt with in a healthier way.

Mourinho relied on absolute belief in himself and his methods, without question. Where he had that, he did well. But as players increasingly grew more questioning and less ready to blindly buy into him, he suffered and could never adapt to an environment where he needed to explain himself and generate buy-in with more than his personality and his CV.

To be fair to him, he's said it himself - he doesn't fit with modern players.
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Players were always tacos. Drinking doing drugs etc...
The big shift was bosman and the agents.
Which mourinho was a part of with mendez. Which helped get him success. Great players always helps.

You have to work both up and down. To the board and the players. If the board have your back then you have authority. If not you are fudged.

Winning, everythings great. Slip up, knives out.
 
Robspur12 said:
And that's how it will be with Richy given his injury record. He'll rarely play 90mins. And why we need another forward.
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And we have dim who will IMO be first choice
But we have to work out what to do with richy because as good as tonight was who would back against him breaking down on Saturday
 
Aldo said:
We were 2-0 up, with 15 mins to go, do we need a 100% energised striker?
Like I said, I loved everything from Frank tonight, but the substitutions seemed a bit naive.
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Yes. Work rate from the entire team including the striker is really important in situations like that.

Both Richarlison and Kudus looked to be really struggling. Particularly Richarlison with his injury record, would have been really strange to leave him on the pitch.
 
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