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Manager Thomas Frank

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Are you Frank Out or In?

  • Total voters
    623
Richard Arlison said:

View: https://x.com/chriscowlin/status/1950153287065620715?s=46&t=fbqxNuG9CT4qTaiJx8mBjg

0-0 against ourselves
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Reminds me of the Steve Howey story on when Ossie was manager at Newcastle
He said: "We had a training session under Ossie, it’s called shadow play. He picks his eleven that’s going to start on the Saturday or through the week.

"It’s your goalkeeper, a four (in defence), a four (in midfield) and a two (in attack) and you’ve got a full-sized pitch. You’re playing against nobody, get some goals, then come back and start again.

"So, Ossie has set us up, we’ve took the kick-off, passed it back to Lee Clark, Lee Clark’s passed it back to Kevin Scott, again we’re playing backwards and we should be playing forwards cos we aren’t playing against anybody.
"Kevin Scott gives it to Steve Watson, Steve Watson turns round and passes it back to Tommy Wright who’s in goal, but Tommy Wright was putting his gloves on in the back of the net, and the ball goes in the goal.

"We’re getting beat 1-0 and we ain’t playing any fucker. We were going through a really bad time at the time, and you could just see Ossie just rocking with his head in his hands.
 
_mehstg said:
Reminds me of the Steve Howey story on when Ossie was manager at Newcastle
He said: "We had a training session under Ossie, it’s called shadow play. He picks his eleven that’s going to start on the Saturday or through the week.

"It’s your goalkeeper, a four (in defence), a four (in midfield) and a two (in attack) and you’ve got a full-sized pitch. You’re playing against nobody, get some goals, then come back and start again.

"So, Ossie has set us up, we’ve took the kick-off, passed it back to Lee Clark, Lee Clark’s passed it back to Kevin Scott, again we’re playing backwards and we should be playing forwards cos we aren’t playing against anybody.
"Kevin Scott gives it to Steve Watson, Steve Watson turns round and passes it back to Tommy Wright who’s in goal, but Tommy Wright was putting his gloves on in the back of the net, and the ball goes in the goal.

"We’re getting beat 1-0 and we ain’t playing any fucker. We were going through a really bad time at the time, and you could just see Ossie just rocking with his head in his hands.
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A timeless classic
 
_mehstg said:
Reminds me of the Steve Howey story on when Ossie was manager at Newcastle
He said: "We had a training session under Ossie, it’s called shadow play. He picks his eleven that’s going to start on the Saturday or through the week.

"It’s your goalkeeper, a four (in defence), a four (in midfield) and a two (in attack) and you’ve got a full-sized pitch. You’re playing against nobody, get some goals, then come back and start again.

"So, Ossie has set us up, we’ve took the kick-off, passed it back to Lee Clark, Lee Clark’s passed it back to Kevin Scott, again we’re playing backwards and we should be playing forwards cos we aren’t playing against anybody.
"Kevin Scott gives it to Steve Watson, Steve Watson turns round and passes it back to Tommy Wright who’s in goal, but Tommy Wright was putting his gloves on in the back of the net, and the ball goes in the goal.

"We’re getting beat 1-0 and we ain’t playing any fucker. We were going through a really bad time at the time, and you could just see Ossie just rocking with his head in his hands.
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View: https://www.tiktok.com/@frankkhaliduk/video/7479514724497919254
 
bit of a concern were goals are coming from next season with Frank's more pragmatic style.
Even with Ange's more open set up we weren't that great going forward, and further more Son who likely wont be here chipped in 16 direct goal contributions.
 
White Van Jan said:
name me one game when we were unlucky to lose or only get a draw.

I'll give you the eintracht 1-1 at home, we hit the woodwork 3 times in the 2nd half but it didnt matter overall as we went though anyway.

But in the PL? Can't think of a single game. I can think of some losses which were by the one goal but where we were absolutely battered. can think of some draws where we wre batterd

matches played for starters

2023-24: 41 matches
2024-25: 60 matches

and in that first season we fell off a cliff last 10 matches, only beating relegated teams. We basically lasted about 30 matches.

30 mathces season 2 took us to about Tamworth.

after that just 2 home wins in PL from then on, Saints and MU
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I can believe that fitness played some role in what happened.

I think the best way to think of luck is not by identifying specific lucky incidents. That repeats our natural human bias of looking for causal narratives.

This is a better way - If you replayed a game ten times, would you get the same result every time?

No. The variance in outcomes is what we mean by luck. It’s a really difficult concept to get your head around but it’s there in every game. It’s hard to understand but it’s easy to feel - it’s what we love about sport. The fact that a goal or a moment can conpletely change the game. All that hard work… or 80 minutes of dominance.. And then someone slips, or loses tbeir temper, or a ball is played with perfect precision instead of being over hit by 2%…

Clearly finishing 17th is a very low or bad outcome for us. Statistically (even though it’s hard to see), that means we had bad luck, in the sense that if you rewound the clock 100 times, we would finish above 17th nearly every time (even with being as bad as we were).
 
Bigging up Woolwich in his presser..

I don't like it.

Going on about how they are one of the best teams in the World right now, the most pertinent thing we should all be asking is why are they so far ahead when we were miles and miles ahead of them a few short years ago and get ENIC/Levy/Lange/ whoever the fuck it is to pull their fucking finger out and buy some quality.
Also when we were ahead I don't remember any of their managers referring to us as one of the best in the world.

We need to get shot of this inferiority complex.

We should be competing with them at the top table, there is no longer an excuse. I'm not going back to 15 yrs ago looking up at them. This shit isn't acceptable
 
Distaste for scouse said:
Bigging up Woolwich in his presser..

I don't like it.

Going on about how they are one of the best teams in the World right now, the most pertinent thing we should all be asking is why are they so far ahead when we were miles and miles ahead of them a few short years ago and get ENIC/Levy/Lange/ whoever the fuck it is to pull their fucking finger out and buy some quality.
Also when we were ahead I don't remember any of their managers referring to us as one of the best in the world.

We need to get shot of this inferiority complex.

We should be competing with them at the top table, there is no longer an excuse. I'm not going back to 15 yrs ago looking up at them. This shit isn't acceptable
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Doesnt the just tell you how quickly things can turn in football?

Our plan is explicitly to become the number one destination for young players. We have a better crop of U23 players then I think any other team in the world. Keep them together for 2/3 years and we’ll be back on top.

It’s cyclical. And we never used to be able to say that. Until this past decade, Woolwich were clearly better than us my whole spurs supporting life.
 
LeParisien said:
Let’s say an extremely talented set of U23 players.
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There is in fact a London club that is massively resourcing itself to benefit from the aging and emergence of the best U23 players money can buy, and it's Chelsea.

Tottenham's plan is to leverage the increase in a player's output and value as they progress in their 20's to reach parity (not superiority, parity) with bigger spending clubs while spending less money.

That's possible to do, but it depends on excellent scouting not just on an individual level but a collective level. The biggest fees we've spent on U23 players during this current process have been for Brennan Johnson, Archie Gray and Mathys Tel. If those don't drive the project forward Bergvall and Vuskovic et al aren't going to be enough.

The absolute, ironclad, sacrosanct, unshakable bedrock commitment to spend less money on the squad than the competition means an extreme degree of difficulty at all times.

ANY strategy that involved spending commensurate with our wealth would have a MUCH greater chance of success.
 
LeParisien said:
Doesnt the just tell you how quickly things can turn in football?

Our plan is explicitly to become the number one destination for young players. We have a better crop of U23 players then I think any other team in the world. Keep them together for 2/3 years and we’ll be back on top.

It’s cyclical. And we never used to be able to say that. Until this past decade, Woolwich were clearly better than us my whole spurs supporting life.
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I think you are missing my point a little.

Even when we had the ascendancy for 5-6 seasons there was never a huge gulf between our squads. They still had some players we would have taken into our team.

Right now I'm not sure there are many of our players that even make their squad.

And I'm pointing fingers at our absentee owners who through a series of inept appointments and a lack of spending have set us back decades.

You might point to our net spend and say that Levy does spend money, but he doesnt' do it in the right way, he would rather buy 2-3 kids for £70m than just buy a top player for example an Eze and make him a top earner at the club in terms of wages.

This is why we have fallen behind. We are putting all our eggs in one basket with kids and its just a huge risk. For one our fanbase doesn't have the patience to watch us floundering in the wilderness while we wait for a bunch of 18-19 year olds to reach their peak mid 20's.
And then there is always the possibility they get poached off us. There is also no guarantee that they fulfill their potential.

This is why other big clubs don't operate like this.

The goons along with the other big clubs just go out and buy the real McCoy ready made off the shelf no waiting.

Its high time we started acting like a big club, we aren't Bournemouth or Nottingham Forest.
 
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ElTel said:
Since when did Ex become a journo:franklol:
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"I'm happy with the squad"

Uh Oh Jesus GIF by FoilArmsandHog
 
Unfortunately little point in saying it's time we acted like a big club it is simply not going to happen under ENIC ,we have enough evidence of that .We will have to rely on luck and luck is a fickle friend Unfortunately.
 
Distaste for scouse said:
Bigging up Woolwich in his presser..

I don't like it.

Going on about how they are one of the best teams in the World right now, the most pertinent thing we should all be asking is why are they so far ahead when we were miles and miles ahead of them a few short years ago and get ENIC/Levy/Lange/ whoever the fuck it is to pull their fucking finger out and buy some quality.
Also when we were ahead I don't remember any of their managers referring to us as one of the best in the world.

We need to get shot of this inferiority complex.

We should be competing with them at the top table, there is no longer an excuse. I'm not going back to 15 yrs ago looking up at them. This shit isn't acceptable
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Frank has just come in. He is ambitious, he will want to close the gap with Woolwich and the rest. One thing is for sure, apart from this game against them which has come too soon ,I think in the future Frank will get under Arteta's skin with how we perform against them.
 
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