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Thomas Frank - Head Coach

Glenda's Legs said:
Whoa - has @Bedfordspurs stopped posting because of reactions? Doesn’t strike me that it would bother him. I just assumed he was on holiday or something. If not then that’s a huge shame.
I don’t read everything but on the whole things still seem courteous here overall. Of course there will be differences in opinions but it’s generally not abusive.
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Brennan Johnson was one of his favourites. He might be annoyed we’ve sold him.
 
Raziel said:
We had finished outside top 6, twice in 20 years prior to last season, with the outlier being 11th. We fudging created the concept of big 6 (it was Sky 4 before). Our average finishing position I think is 5.x for 20 years, failure to deliver the final step doesn't change the fact we were challenging (think it's also 22+ QF/SF or Final appearances in that time). We are not Villa, Everton, West Ham who had a couple of good years here or there and more brick years.
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5 times since 04-05, so you are parroting on about "the good old days" of the top 6 and laying the blame of all Tottenham woe without even knowing your own club, ironic as you lay that at the managers doors. And if you don't want to cherry pick dates and compare with Arsenal (which you were) its even worse.

People are defending a manager who has been at a club 4 months, a club thats famously under performed for 30+ years. No amount of listening to Chas and Dave on repeat and reading

As for the big 6 of PL formation, how well did that do us? Because unless I was in a coma, we spent a large portion of the 90s fighting Oldham and Barnsley for bragging rights.

I am not saying we are a small club, before people jump up and down and call me unambitious, I just refute the idea that Frank and even Ange, seeing as you mentioned him, I refute they are to blame for all the bitching and crying I see and hear about the club near on 24/7, ironically the same levels of bitching and moaning thats been here on and off for 30 years as a club
 
It's disappointing to see the boo boys are out in force, it is tough but not impossible to turn it around but will require improvements with results rather than just acknowledging 'green shoots' in performances for them to shut up. Let's hope the board stand firm as positionally we are not adrift of the European places and yesterday there was a visible improvement. Now with Simons returning, we could really begin to work on our attacking play and getting some consistency to it and if the end product isn't there then so be it, Frank can't be blamed for that.

I would like to see him persist with Tel and Odobert combining with Simons and get those guys used to linking up, I honestly believe there is big potential with this trio but Tel especially needs some consistent game time to show it and not just the 5 minutes off the bench every now and again that he got before yesterday. If Frank can work with these guys for the rest of the season, (I don't care what he does with Muani as it looks to me Muani himself doesn't care and isn't playing to anywhere near where his ability suggests) then I would hope we can see incremental improvements in our attack. I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation and do think Frank can deliver on this....
 
Raziel said:
for discussion purposes, not sure if I see it the same way. Here's my view

- Ange scared the club on the injury front, the sheer extent of 14 players being out, the rash of significant long term (full season) injuries included gave the leadership major concerns
- I genuinely think that is what ruled out Iraola, I think the club looked seriously at him and the unsustainable intensity was the deal breaker
- I think the legacies of Jose and Conte often just being unlikeable, with Ange being the opposite meant, one of the characteristics (Vinai/Lange I think talked about this, what they were looking for) was a decent/likeable guy (probably also to ease the pushback from firing a recently cup delivering manager)
- The other Ange hangover, along with what people could see at United (think at some point Amorim was on our radar as well), was the concern about managers that were inflexible, so in that characteristics box went tactical flexibility.
- Then you could probably add the bonus boxes -> managed/proven in PL, data driven, modern approaches

You take those, look at the next set of manager in line for a step up -> Iraola, Frank, Silva, etc and you can see why Frank was an option (I'll not add my original concerns)

Where I disagree with you is
- I thought as most people did, that Frank's tactics were based on what he had (smallest budget of any ever present PL team in his time at Brentford), i.e. if you give him better, the team would play better (they were more expansive by most reports in championship)

What I'm not seeing is any evidence of that, what I'm seeing is a guy that will play the same "don't lose, don't create risk to impose yourself regardless of the gap in talent between your team and opposition" even if he had a better striker/LW/CM, again look at United, added a better keeper, added 200M+ in front line, are the results better? yes, because they will keep out a few more, and score a few more, but realistically they still play brick.

And I don't think the comparison's to Conte are even close, Conte knew exactly what he wanted out of each player, they knew where to be, we knew we were a mid block team setup to counter, we knew we gave up a numerical advantage in midfield (only pre-injury Bentancur made it work). With Conte it was easy to see where upgrading a player could change the result. I still don't understand what is our press trigger under Frank, why do it sometimes not others, why swap between being high, mid or low block?

While I agree I don't think he's actively trying to be brick, I think Frank is unfortunately (and I have nothing personal against the guy) is a Potter, the risk/reward/small club (not meant as a dig) tactics simply don't translate at this level (even with better players), because we need to take more risks so we get those 5-6 more wins a season that are the difference between 10th-14th and 4th-7th, at Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth 10th is a good season, at Spurs 10th is the 3rd worst result in 20+ years.

And this is already an essay but someone was commenting on Pep's changes over the years and he said the consistency was Pep was constantly trying to do two things
- Create overloads in spaces (so you outnumber your opponent and can pass/move around them)
- And/or create isolations (1:1s where the quality of his players would shine through)

And the second point is where I think managers making that step up fail, it was a flaw under Ange (he focused so much on the overloads it rarely allowed us to rely simply on having better players, especially against lesser teams). Frank is the same, he doesn't have a system that gives Kudus a change to go at his man (we won't stretch the game or pass decisively to give him an advantage), instead we thump the ball at him under pressure as an outlet ball instead of using him as a weapon, same for Richi, play a player off him and get him lots of balls in the box to make him score, not bang the ball to him in the air with his back to goal 35 yards out. And I think you agree with me on Johnson, he may not have been the guy, but how the fudge did we not try him off the striker as a second forward considering how much of a finisher he was (and if it didn't work, so be it, but we never even tried). And again this smacks of a manager who has never thought about what happens if I have the better team across the park? it so feels like we are the promoted club that needs to grind every game, take every draw as a good game with the odd win (3 wins in last 11)

Summary, he is probably doing his best, but for the above reasons I don't think it works and I don't see how giving him money really changes it, sure a better striker would win us the odd extra game, a better midfielder might help us grind another draw out, but I don't see how he makes that transition to not only the tactics but putting the mentality into the players of "you are expected to win this game"
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Not sure we disagree on much TBH. I won't get into why, but trust me, there's a slew of posts which would make that clear.
 
Unfortunately it won’t work out for him here. A significant enough section of the fan base have decided they don’t want him, boo him at matches and will get him hounded out eventually. It’s basically untenable to be honest.

He could win the next five, the same people would boo him if he lost the sixth. So it’s really a case now of if it’s summer or before, then we’ll find someone else to do this with again next season. Then probably again the season after that.
 
Raziel said:
Jol, Harry, AVB, Poch, Jose, Conte, Ange all showed the resources given are enough for top 5, do we need January reinforcements? yes but if this squad finishes outside of top 8, it's massive underperformance.
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Can you just remind us.... where exactly did THIS squad - with practically the same players (Son instead of Kudus and Bissouma instead of Palhinha; and a fit Dom/Kulu and Madders for most of the time) and with less stress from an inferior European competition and playing "attacking football" - finish last season....

Not Conte/Jose with Harry and Son firing on all cylinders, not Poch with a world class squad, not AVB with a stellar Bale and not Harry with a Modric and VDV.

THIS SQUAD!!!
 
It did make me chuckle catching up on the Frank autopsy again. So much detailed and intricate analysis of the guy but missing the main point about why Frank was hired.

I cannot bang the drum enough about this. Spurs conceded over 60 goals in the PL for 3 consecutive seasons. That even included when a world class striker scored 30. Now if you're sitting in a board room and trying to find solutions for the next phase then that big fat elephant is in the board room with you. You simply cannot ignore it. If you know anything about football you know that if you don't solve for that one thing then you might as well forget everything else as it is totally irrelevant. That then introduces the dilemma as you know that Spurs history is deep rooted in attractive football. By the way, it is also deep rooted in NOT winning trophies.

So you look at the candidates and you see a manager who seems quite famous for building his attacks e.g. BMW. At the same time he has this pragmatic approach where he can put together tight defences with minimal resources. In that board room, they knew Frank wouldn't be a fan choice and there would be a pain barrier to go through. In order for the fans to start thinking like winners then they have to stop deluding themselves that you can just go to entertaining football, keep clean sheets and automagically get back into CL league places. Life just doesn't work like that. It's about the hard yards. We needed a hard yards manager with the relevant experience in this league. We also needed a manager with runway himself to grow and get a different experience.

Our only focus in January should be getting a couple of difference makers in the transfer market and shifting a couple more if we can.
 
Rafa87 said:
Unfortunately it won’t work out for him here. A significant enough section of the fan base have decided they don’t want him, boo him at matches and will get him hounded out eventually. It’s basically untenable to be honest.

He could win the next five, the same people would boo him if he lost the sixth. So it’s really a case now of if it’s summer or before, then we’ll find someone else to do this with again next season. Then probably again the season after that.
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One has to love the simplicity of booing/moaning...it can fudge so much up...such a blunt instrument. Awash with no solutions, ladders, glimmers of light, just sea of negativity.
 
Rafa87 said:
Unfortunately it won’t work out for him here. A significant enough section of the fan base have decided they don’t want him, boo him at matches and will get him hounded out eventually. It’s basically untenable to be honest.

He could win the next five, the same people would boo him if he lost the sixth. So it’s really a case now of if it’s summer or before, then we’ll find someone else to do this with again next season. Then probably again the season after that.
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I agree, largely. It does seem he hasn't got the coaching to naturally have us passing, moving and attacking in ways that naturally create decent chances for the attackers aside from crosses. Even when having chances on the counter the running, positioning and passing angles taken by the players look like they don't practice it much.

Tbh, the appointment of Frank when we have secured CL shows how unattractive in coaches eyes we have made ourselves after 2 decades of what i call unambitious football planning, same with the appointment of Ange and Nuno.
When we've employed the bigger names we have again half-assed things.

However, i think the club have to stick with Frank (AND buy relatively big this January) until the summer simply to rid themselves of this poor image, imv.
 
glorygloryeze said:
I agree, largely. It does seem he hasn't got the coaching to naturally have us passing, moving and attacking in ways that naturally create decent chances for the attackers aside from crosses. Even when having chances on the counter the running, positioning and passing angles taken by the players look like they don't practice it much.

Tbh, the appointment of Frank when we have secured CL shows how unattractive in coaches eyes we have made ourselves after 2 decades of what i call unambitious football planning, same with the appointment of Ange and Nuno.
When we've employed the bigger names with again half-assed things.

However, i think the club have to stick with Frank (AND buy relatively big this January) until the summer simply to rid themselves of this poor image, imv.
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I am dead keen to see who we get or who is attracted to the job, I am even more keen to see who fits the fan requirements
 
Raziel said:
for discussion purposes, not sure if I see it the same way. Here's my view

- Ange scared the club on the injury front, the sheer extent of 14 players being out, the rash of significant long term (full season) injuries included gave the leadership major concerns
- I genuinely think that is what ruled out Iraola, I think the club looked seriously at him and the unsustainable intensity was the deal breaker
- I think the legacies of Jose and Conte often just being unlikeable, with Ange being the opposite meant, one of the characteristics (Vinai/Lange I think talked about this, what they were looking for) was a decent/likeable guy (probably also to ease the pushback from firing a recently cup delivering manager)
- The other Ange hangover, along with what people could see at United (think at some point Amorim was on our radar as well), was the concern about managers that were inflexible, so in that characteristics box went tactical flexibility.
- Then you could probably add the bonus boxes -> managed/proven in PL, data driven, modern approaches

You take those, look at the next set of manager in line for a step up -> Iraola, Frank, Silva, etc and you can see why Frank was an option (I'll not add my original concerns)

Where I disagree with you is
- I thought as most people did, that Frank's tactics were based on what he had (smallest budget of any ever present PL team in his time at Brentford), i.e. if you give him better, the team would play better (they were more expansive by most reports in championship)

What I'm not seeing is any evidence of that, what I'm seeing is a guy that will play the same "don't lose, don't create risk to impose yourself regardless of the gap in talent between your team and opposition" even if he had a better striker/LW/CM, again look at United, added a better keeper, added 200M+ in front line, are the results better? yes, because they will keep out a few more, and score a few more, but realistically they still play brick.

And I don't think the comparison's to Conte are even close, Conte knew exactly what he wanted out of each player, they knew where to be, we knew we were a mid block team setup to counter, we knew we gave up a numerical advantage in midfield (only pre-injury Bentancur made it work). With Conte it was easy to see where upgrading a player could change the result. I still don't understand what is our press trigger under Frank, why do it sometimes not others, why swap between being high, mid or low block?

While I agree I don't think he's actively trying to be brick, I think Frank is unfortunately (and I have nothing personal against the guy) is a Potter, the risk/reward/small club (not meant as a dig) tactics simply don't translate at this level (even with better players), because we need to take more risks so we get those 5-6 more wins a season that are the difference between 10th-14th and 4th-7th, at Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth 10th is a good season, at Spurs 10th is the 3rd worst result in 20+ years.

And this is already an essay but someone was commenting on Pep's changes over the years and he said the consistency was Pep was constantly trying to do two things
- Create overloads in spaces (so you outnumber your opponent and can pass/move around them)
- And/or create isolations (1:1s where the quality of his players would shine through)

And the second point is where I think managers making that step up fail, it was a flaw under Ange (he focused so much on the overloads it rarely allowed us to rely simply on having better players, especially against lesser teams). Frank is the same, he doesn't have a system that gives Kudus a change to go at his man (we won't stretch the game or pass decisively to give him an advantage), instead we thump the ball at him under pressure as an outlet ball instead of using him as a weapon, same for Richi, play a player off him and get him lots of balls in the box to make him score, not bang the ball to him in the air with his back to goal 35 yards out. And I think you agree with me on Johnson, he may not have been the guy, but how the fudge did we not try him off the striker as a second forward considering how much of a finisher he was (and if it didn't work, so be it, but we never even tried). And again this smacks of a manager who has never thought about what happens if I have the better team across the park? it so feels like we are the promoted club that needs to grind every game, take every draw as a good game with the odd win (3 wins in last 11)

Summary, he is probably doing his best, but for the above reasons I don't think it works and I don't see how giving him money really changes it, sure a better striker would win us the odd extra game, a better midfielder might help us grind another draw out, but I don't see how he makes that transition to not only the tactics but putting the mentality into the players of "you are expected to win this game"
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This is an excellent post! Thank you!
 
Raziel said:
for discussion purposes, not sure if I see it the same way. Here's my view

- Ange scared the club on the injury front, the sheer extent of 14 players being out, the rash of significant long term (full season) injuries included gave the leadership major concerns
- I genuinely think that is what ruled out Iraola, I think the club looked seriously at him and the unsustainable intensity was the deal breaker
- I think the legacies of Jose and Conte often just being unlikeable, with Ange being the opposite meant, one of the characteristics (Vinai/Lange I think talked about this, what they were looking for) was a decent/likeable guy (probably also to ease the pushback from firing a recently cup delivering manager)
- The other Ange hangover, along with what people could see at United (think at some point Amorim was on our radar as well), was the concern about managers that were inflexible, so in that characteristics box went tactical flexibility.
- Then you could probably add the bonus boxes -> managed/proven in PL, data driven, modern approaches

You take those, look at the next set of manager in line for a step up -> Iraola, Frank, Silva, etc and you can see why Frank was an option (I'll not add my original concerns)

Where I disagree with you is
- I thought as most people did, that Frank's tactics were based on what he had (smallest budget of any ever present PL team in his time at Brentford), i.e. if you give him better, the team would play better (they were more expansive by most reports in championship)

What I'm not seeing is any evidence of that, what I'm seeing is a guy that will play the same "don't lose, don't create risk to impose yourself regardless of the gap in talent between your team and opposition" even if he had a better striker/LW/CM, again look at United, added a better keeper, added 200M+ in front line, are the results better? yes, because they will keep out a few more, and score a few more, but realistically they still play brick.

And I don't think the comparison's to Conte are even close, Conte knew exactly what he wanted out of each player, they knew where to be, we knew we were a mid block team setup to counter, we knew we gave up a numerical advantage in midfield (only pre-injury Bentancur made it work). With Conte it was easy to see where upgrading a player could change the result. I still don't understand what is our press trigger under Frank, why do it sometimes not others, why swap between being high, mid or low block?

While I agree I don't think he's actively trying to be brick, I think Frank is unfortunately (and I have nothing personal against the guy) is a Potter, the risk/reward/small club (not meant as a dig) tactics simply don't translate at this level (even with better players), because we need to take more risks so we get those 5-6 more wins a season that are the difference between 10th-14th and 4th-7th, at Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth 10th is a good season, at Spurs 10th is the 3rd worst result in 20+ years.

And this is already an essay but someone was commenting on Pep's changes over the years and he said the consistency was Pep was constantly trying to do two things
- Create overloads in spaces (so you outnumber your opponent and can pass/move around them)
- And/or create isolations (1:1s where the quality of his players would shine through)

And the second point is where I think managers making that step up fail, it was a flaw under Ange (he focused so much on the overloads it rarely allowed us to rely simply on having better players, especially against lesser teams). Frank is the same, he doesn't have a system that gives Kudus a change to go at his man (we won't stretch the game or pass decisively to give him an advantage), instead we thump the ball at him under pressure as an outlet ball instead of using him as a weapon, same for Richi, play a player off him and get him lots of balls in the box to make him score, not bang the ball to him in the air with his back to goal 35 yards out. And I think you agree with me on Johnson, he may not have been the guy, but how the fudge did we not try him off the striker as a second forward considering how much of a finisher he was (and if it didn't work, so be it, but we never even tried). And again this smacks of a manager who has never thought about what happens if I have the better team across the park? it so feels like we are the promoted club that needs to grind every game, take every draw as a good game with the odd win (3 wins in last 11)

Summary, he is probably doing his best, but for the above reasons I don't think it works and I don't see how giving him money really changes it, sure a better striker would win us the odd extra game, a better midfielder might help us grind another draw out, but I don't see how he makes that transition to not only the tactics but putting the mentality into the players of "you are expected to win this game"
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That's a very fair and detailed summary.

Do you not see though that our owners are the main problem though? I mean many could possibly have seen this issue and they employed Frank, probably because no-one better will come to us after decades of showing that when it comes to the crunch they are NOT ambitious on the football front (i mean REALLY ambitious, not just aiming to quality for Europe/top 4).

We could sack Frank now and i bet we would not be able to attract a better long-term coach. I do not think we are attractive amongst the kind of coaches we'd like/need.
 
fernadez said:
I still think he's in no danger of being sacked or even close to it.

People wishing/hoping for it are setting themselves up for a frustrating period of supporting the club.
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Yeah, i agree. He has until the end of the season at least for reasons i've mentioned a few times already.

How the team evolves between now (especially if we buy one or two players this January) and the summer will dictate if he's kept beyond then imo
 
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