Thomas Frank's tortured Tottenham reign: The tactical errors

At the end of his penultimate season in charge of Brentford, Thomas Frank figured he might have chanced upon the best job in the world.

'Probably the perfect football life,' Frank told me as we sank into the sofa of the family suite in the Gtech Community Stadium and he shared reflections on his third season in the Premier League with the Bees. 'Working in a good club in London, in the best league in the world with good players, we can compete. Do we want to win titles? Yes, that would be nice but it’s not like do-or-die. I still think it’s possible to win a cup and that’s the aim, to go as far as possible.'

This was May 2024, days before the FA Cup final and Frank was becoming a man in demand. He revealed in a book last year how he had been in talks at the time with Manchester United and Chelsea.

Those offers did not materialise. United won the FA Cup and stuck with Erik ten Hag, who has since been sacked twice and his replacement is no longer at Old Trafford either. Chelsea went instead for Enzo Maresca and sacked him on New Year’s Day after 18 months.

Frank did not appear unduly concerned because he was enjoying life at Brentford. 'If a big club one day comes to knock on my door, then I need to consider it but it’s not something I’m hunting,' he said. 'I could stay in Brentford for… well, forever is probably a crazily long time to work for them, but I could stay here for a further sustained period. One day maybe I need to try something else, I don’t know. I’m more open. I’m happy here and sometimes you need to be careful what you wish for.'

Drum roll, please. June 2025, enter Tottenham Hotspur.

The next knock at Frank’s door was an invitation to replace Ange Postecoglou and, after eight and a half upwardly mobile years at Brentford, he took the leap. 'I like to challenge myself,' he said at his unveiling. 'I have the privilege of never being sacked before. That is one of the reasons why I took the job. I get a little bit more risk in my daily life.'

Eight months on, he has been sacked following an abysmal run of form, in a blaze of ridicule from Spurs fans who quickly decided he was not for them.

His short and tortured reign was defined by an espresso cup branded with the Arsenal logo, chants of 'Boring, Boring Tottenham' and ended after a damp and dismal night in the rain and the seventh home defeat of the Premier League campaign at the hands of a struggling Newcastle United tipped Spurs into a relegation scrap.

Be careful what you wish for, indeed.

Post-Ange Spurs was a difficult place to start. Had Frank arrived this time last year it would have been different, because support for Postecoglou was low until cleansed by one night in Bilbao and the Australian was recast as a hero. One who tried to play the right way, said the right things and brought home the silver.

Follow that. Frank could not. He set off with three encouraging performances. Spirited defeat on penalties by Paris Saint-Germain in the Super Cup, then a 3-0 home win against Burnley and victory at Manchester City.

His tactical flexibility was applauded as the antithesis of stubborn old Ange, but next up was a home defeat at the hands of Bournemouth. And the struggles kicked in as soon as the European campaign started.

Since the first Champions League tie – against Villarreal on 16 September – Spurs have won just four Premier League games. They have won at Leeds, Everton and Crystal Palace and beaten Brentford at home.

As Postecoglou found, the squad was not strong enough to cope on two fronts. Rotations weakened the team significantly. Without necessary rotation, injuries took hold. With James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski out long-term and Son Heung-min sold, creativity was in short supply and by extension so were goals from open play.

Apart from Richarlison, none of the forwards have looked much like scoring. The Dominic Solanke injury saga did not help, but to accommodate new £55million signing Mohammed Kudus, Frank decided not to play Brennan Johnson on the right wing, from where last season he scored 18 goals and became the hero of Bilbao.

That is his call. And there were others, too, which backfired. Frank’s response to the dearth of creativity was to tighten up and shield his defence. If they could concede fewer goals, in theory, they would not need to score so many to win and they always carried a strong threat from set-pieces.

But this simply made his team less fluent overall. More ponderous in possession in deep areas. More liable to lose the ball while playing out from the back. It also bored fans.

What had initially been hailed as tactical flexibility came to represent over-organised caution of someone overly concerned with how to stop opponents and not bold enough to enforce his own philosophy on the game.

Hasty comparisons were drawn to Nuno Espirito Santo’s brief tenure in 2021. Nuno won eight of his 17 games, and was sacked within four months, quietly filed away in Spurs history as simply the wrong fit and best not mentioned again.

When Frank sought adventure, his team became painfully vulnerable at the back and when he switched to a back five at Arsenal in November, the crushing defeat reinforced concerns of many fans about his style and his understanding of their expectations.

Eberechi Eze, a player he thought Spurs had signed in August, scored a hat-trick for Arsenal. They were running clear at the top of the Premier League and Frank found it impossible to reverse the narrative from here despite the will of the board.

With every hint of progress came a setback. The Xavi Simons red card against Liverpool and three-game ban just as he started to find his rhythm hit hard. Frank was still grumbling about it a month later.

Home terrors have been impossible to shift. Again, these are rooted in pre-Frank era, but the team has developed a feat of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium where a simple error can turn the mood toxic.

Fans were disgruntled and Frank acquired a habit of antagonising them, be it with something he did or said or didn’t say.

Perhaps it is pertinent that he is the first Spurs boss for two decades to operate without Daniel Levy in the chair. Levy’s exit in September surely had its advantages but also one major drawback because it removed the biggest target for angry fans.

Unlike some of his predecessors Frank has been a personal target for the flak and despite all the warnings about no quick fixes, results matter most.

Other factors stand. Spurs need culture change and stability at the top. Frank’s rapid failure demands serious questions of silent sporting director Johan Lange who identified his fellow Dane as the sensible leader required, but with Fabio Paratici already gone, back to Italy with Fiorentina after his brief return, how does that improve continuity?

Years of terrible recruitment must be addressed. Spurs lack leadership as well as quality on the pitch. The desperate shortage of homegrown talent leaves the squad exposed in Europe.

Amid this, the Spurs job has become an unnavigable maze, but Frank knows the rules. When results spoil there is only one outcome and since the New Year everything has accelerated out of his control.

The beginning of the end came on New Year’s Day at Brentford of all places, with a goalless draw and Spurs fans chanting ‘Boring Boring Tottenham’.

Three days later, a draw at home to Sunderland, more boos and Kudus injured within two days of selling Johnson to Crystal Palace - because he wasn’t in Frank’s long-term plans and £35m was a good price.

The Johnson exit, for all its good logic, had left its mark on players. Those who had been told when signing or in contract talks that the new post-Levy regime were serious about investing saw the first window start with a significant sale.

Next came the meltdown at Bournemouth. The Arsenal coffee cup, a 95th-minute winner conceded. Rodrigo Bentancur’s injury. Micky van de Ven’s confrontation with Spurs fans in the away end.

Captain Cristian Romero’s social media post accusing the board of ‘lies’ liked by various team-mates.

The FA Cup exit at home to Aston Villa with more post-match skirmishing by players, an FA charge and a deepening injury crisis combined. Another underwhelming transfer window followed by another Romero’s second swipe on social media.

Then, his second red card of the season, at Manchester United on Saturday and he watched the Newcastle defeat from a pitchside seat with the raft of injured stars.

There has been a theme of players out of control since Van de Ven and Djed Spence snubbed Frank in November when he wanted them to join him applauding fans who had booed the team before the end of a 1-0 defeat at home to Chelsea.

Strangely, results in the Champions League held but everything else has come tumbling down around Frank since the turn of the year.

And now he has the ‘privilege’ as he calls it of getting the sack and confirmation of what he suspected all along.

That if there is anything like a perfect job in English football it probably does not exist at Spurs.