Vinai Venkatesham - CEO

[MartyFunkhouser]

Time to pull out the classic

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Surely he's showed them both up then in that case. His football is better than either of them were serving up under worse conditions. From that Chelsea game through the rest of Ange's tenure and through Frank's the football has been brick.
At some point it becomes what each person prefers, attacking 'intent' but not scoring and concedeing goals, or defensive 'intent' but not scoring and conceding goals. For me there is no difference between them, personally I give Frank a bit more leway as I would much prefer to have to plug holes at the back as opposed to having my whole attacking line up out.

I’m very open to the idea that RDZ’s football better integrates defensive solidity and attacking intent than Ange’s does. And I do think what RDZ was able to do with a decimated squad completely low on confidence is incredible.

But Ange’s ‘football’ was actually very good, very pleasing on the eye and very solid for most of the time he had actual centre backs available to play centre back. The worst performances came at the worst of the injury crisis.

Frank’s football was utterly dreadful, even when we had a fairly fit squad and could rotate most weeks. And that was his intent. We also conceded plenty of goals under him because football is about getting buy in from the squad and understanding what they need to be successful. A defensive manager can concede more goals than an attacking one if they aren’t connecting with the squad.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

But to bring this back to Vinai in the Vinai thread…do we think that Frank in his interview process explained that he would play football that would be pleasing to the Tottenham fans, but first he would start from a solid base before ‘adding layers’, in the way that his Brentford team also evolved?

Were the decision makers bought into that plan? If so that’s quite concerning. As again, RDZ showed it was possible to play a style of football that would get Spurs fans applauding, within 2 games.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

But to bring this back to Vinai in the Vinai thread…do we think that Frank in his interview process explained that he would play football that would be pleasing to the Tottenham fans, but first he would start from a solid base before ‘adding layers’, in the way that his Brentford team also evolved?

Were the decision makers bought into that plan? If so that’s quite concerning. As again, RDZ showed it was possible to play a style of football that would get Spurs fans applauding, within 2 games.

Both Frank and Ange were let down by the squads they had, thats where they are both similar and its where RDZ would be next season if the same happens, maybe to a lesser extent but it would happen eventually. I like 100% what RDZ has done but he was almost let down by the same idiotic mistakes in games (against Chelsea he was let down despite being the better side).

So to answer your question, I think Frank was probably looking to make us more solid and build on it. As someone said elsewhere his Brentford side was actually really good to watch at times, but he never had the front three's he had over the last 3/4 seasons he had there where they all knew their role and delivered.

I think its fairly futile to continue with the Frank v Ange debate considering they both suffered the same fate and were sacked. Football moves forward and I hope in the spirit of this thread that VV delivers in the market for RDZ like he and others before failed to do for previous managers, otherwise we will continue with the path we have been on

 

[Mikey10]

But Ange’s ‘football’ was actually very good, very pleasing on the eye and very solid for most of the time he had actual centre backs available to play centre back. The worst performances came at the worst of the injury crisis.

Depends if you are happy always being one pass away from having your defence (such as it was) totally exposed. I found Ange’s style hopelessly naive, and we played terrible football for at least half of his tenure. (Remember Tamworth in the cup, for example? Possibly the worst Spurs performance I can remember in recent years.)

As for ‘The worst performances came at the worst of the injury crisis’…well, Frank had to cope without Maddison, Son, Kulu and (on and off) Solanke for most of his tenure, all of whom accounted for a huge portion of our goals and assists in the previous seasons. He was largely left with a front three that continued to fail at their primary task under both Tudor and RDZ.

As I said, there is a narrative that tends to see Ange as often being a victim of circumstance, but this doesn’t seem to apply to Frank (who certainly did get his fair share of things wrong, just to be clear).

 

[Raziel]

I’m very open to the idea that RDZ’s football better integrates defensive solidity and attacking intent than Ange’s does. And I do think what RDZ was able to do with a decimated squad completely low on confidence is incredible.

But Ange’s ‘football’ was actually very good, very pleasing on the eye and very solid for most of the time he had actual centre backs available to play centre back. The worst performances came at the worst of the injury crisis.

Frank’s football was utterly dreadful, even when we had a fairly fit squad and could rotate most weeks. And that was his intent. We also conceded plenty of goals under him because football is about getting buy in from the squad and understanding what they need to be successful. A defensive manager can concede more goals than an attacking one if they aren’t connecting with the squad.

Frank's football was brick, brick to watch, brick idea tacitcally, ultimately it was clog the middle, spam from wide (without the necessary overloads in the box to make it work), defend on the penalty line (which left you open to pot shots from distance), that's it.

Ange's football was fudging naïve, 4-3-3 moving to 2-3-5 in possession and attack, freedom of mobility (i.e. if you see a space, you can move into it), final attacking intent was built heavily on winger to winger crossing (Johnson at back post). System had flaws, the counter was ball over top to wide players (counter was buying the fastest CB in the world), that combined with lack of real sitting DM meant you concede 3-4 (minimum) big chnaces a game. Ultimately at the PL level those chances are taken.

In my opinion, Frank will never scale at a top level, his football is too basic, too direct. Ange, there is an argument that maybe, with much better players (say elite wingers, a top level striker and elite DM) it might have worked? (along with his obvious motivation skills), I'd argue that kind of money could be spent safer and not have the drawback of the physical toll Ange took.

Back to Vinai, the inability to grasp Frank's floundering remains the concern for the future.

 

[Bishop]

Nah. To compare Ange and Frank in this way is massively off for me. Not withstanding that Ange never lost the squad and didn’t systematically destroy their confidence, Ange’s football was never as GHod awful as Frank’s. For the simple reason that what we saw from Frank was what Frank actually wanted.

There were periods under Ange, especially away in his first season and in the second half of the second season when the injuries had really piled up, that we didn’t look good. But it was more not being able to impose our game on the opposition and being overrun. But there’s a difference between ‘Ange’s football’ and just playing badly, which will happen to all managers sometimes and will happen more when you have a crazy number of injuries concentrated in a short period of time.

Frank’s low block for 60 minutes, hoof from Porro to Kudus, no forward passes from Bentinha system…that was intentional. And De Zerbi showed very quickly that it didn’t need to be that way, with a worse set of available players.

I know you detest Frank but this is such a disingenuous take. You actually think Frank wanted to play brick football?

If that was the case why did his Brentford side who he managed for 7 years play better football than we did?

How does he manage to fail at creating dead football at Brentford for 7 years, but gets it perfectly right in his first 4 months at Spurs?

I don't know why we are even still going on about Frank. He failed, we've moved on and got a better more suited coach now. He improves on both of the previous 2 in fairly obvious ways.

 

[metalgear]

also coincided with very bad run of injuries and even worse transfer windows (both). so not TF alone

Frank was an utter disgrace of an appointment and he underperformed my already-low expectations. Comfortably the worst manager we've had in my ~25 years of watching spurs.

 

[billyiddo]

Frank's football was brick, brick to watch, brick idea tacitcally, ultimately it was clog the middle, spam from wide (without the necessary overloads in the box to make it work), defend on the penalty line (which left you open to pot shots from distance), that's it.

Ange's football was fudging naïve, 4-3-3 moving to 2-3-5 in possession and attack, freedom of mobility (i.e. if you see a space, you can move into it), final attacking intent was built heavily on winger to winger crossing (Johnson at back post). System had flaws, the counter was ball over top to wide players (counter was buying the fastest CB in the world), that combined with lack of real sitting DM meant you concede 3-4 (minimum) big chnaces a game. Ultimately at the PL level those chances are taken.

In my opinion, Frank will never scale at a top level, his football is too basic, too direct. Ange, there is an argument that maybe, with much better players (say elite wingers, a top level striker and elite DM) it might have worked? (along with his obvious motivation skills), I'd argue that kind of money could be spent safer and not have the drawback of the physical toll Ange took.

Back to Vinai, the inability to grasp Frank's floundering remains the concern for the future.

Ange doesn't play a DM and accommodating one would throw his whole tactical approach out of whack. They'd just be another player easily bypassed by a long ball anyway.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

I know you detest Frank but this is such a disingenuous take. You actually think Frank wanted to play brick football?

If that was the case why did his Brentford side who he managed for 7 years play better football than we did?

How does he manage to fail at creating dead football at Brentford for 7 years, but gets it perfectly right in his first 4 months at Spurs?

I don't know why we are even still going on about Frank. He failed, we've moved on and got a better more suited coach now. He improves on both of the previous 2 in fairly obvious ways.

I think part of it is that what passes for good football at Brentford is not the same as at Spurs. We need to be able to seize the initiative. So when Brentford break on City at the Etihad and win 3-1 it looks like good, exciting, dynamic football. But was Frank ever truly tested on breaking down a team who would cede possession and be able to take the game to them? How many teams set up against Brentford that way?

That is the issue. He just couldn’t do it at Spurs. And what we saw was unarguable. He would only want to attack for about 30 minutes of each game, because for 60 minutes we were defending our box. We were allowing shots from outside the area. We had no plan to get out and get up the pitch. Yes, I absolutely think Frank wanted this, because it is undeniable from the pass maps that is what was happening.

RDZ put to bed the idea that we couldn’t play football that seized the initiative for the majority of a game because he did it within 2 matches. So much of the discussion on here was that the *selection* of Paulinha and Bentancur was the reason for the poor football in possession, rather than what they were being asked to do. Again, RDZ put that idea completely to bed.

I truly think Frank thought he was doing the right thing. I think he thought that the team conceded too many goals and so he needed to make us solid, before then ‘adding layers’. He repeated this often. My question for Vinai…would he was this communicated in the interview process and accepted as the right way to build the team? That we were going to take a group of players that enjoyed being brave in possession and tell them that they now must defend more than they attack? And that only when they’ve proven they can do that, can we add the layers on in possession?

If that was agreed, and believed, that is massively concerning for me. It’s such a basic way to understand football that doesn’t scale to a team that needs to seize the initiative in possession. Just because you play defensively, it doesn’t mean you will not concede goals, especially if you give the players no patterns of play to get out and get up the pitch and continually invite the pressure. And I’m sorry, but that was on Frank.