• The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...

    Get involved!

Manager Thomas Frank

Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports

Are you Frank Out or In?

  • Total voters
    623
It's one thing to make a case for Thomas Frank based on his merits as an individual. I'm not going to get into it now, but it could very well be made. That's why I would describe myself as a cautiously optimistic supporter of his.

Meanwhile these generic, NPC-esque shouts regarding how any manager, once he got the job somehow, should be given at least x number of years of free rein without any accountability or expectations are complete nonsense. They're generic and NPC-esque because they don't take the intricacies of the situation in hand into account. Every fanbase has a portion of fans that parrot these for any manager. That's why they were also parroted for our most recent manager while he was sinking us to new lows. They don't tell anything specific about the guy in question. You could find yourself hoping that Ali Dia will eventually come good if he is given enough time and support.

If you want to make a case for the guy, do it. Resorting to these tired cliches gives the complete opposite impression: That you cannot actually come up with anything positive.
 
Last edited:
Charlie F said:
I am all for giving managers time. But there has to be something there. Otherwise you just confine yourself self to two or three years of dross.

If we are still playing this kind of football in 6 months time - and are something like 8th - I would have no problem getting someone else in


There is just a strong gut feeling from a lot of fans that he will never be better than mediocre. That can only change by him playing better footbal - not from wishful thinking.
It's for him to prove the perception wrong.
And for that he does require some time
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We literally finished 17th and 22 league defeats last season.

Where do people honest think we will finish?!
 
_mehstg said:
Completely disagree. This squad is way better than what we are seeing and you really need to stop using last season as a benchmark to think 8th is acceptable. It isn't.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This squad has no divine right to be in the top 8. The back 4 are as good as anyones but the rest - pah. Would the likes of Newcastle, Villa, even B'muff be rushing to take the likes of Richi, BJ, Tel, Vicario and Odobert off us?
 
AberdeenYid said:
I think we’ve been sold a pup here. Great at a certain level, but not at the level we want to be. Same as the last guy, I suppose.

However, we should give him the season. Let’s be honest, this season is already a bit of a write off, as things aren’t suddenly going to click. We’ve had a look at what’s on offer and it’s not going to change substantially. Even for those who are convinced that the made of paper Maddison, Kulu and Solanke are going to make a marked difference if or when we ever see them at again.

But, World Cup coming up, some decent managers may be on the market in the summer, so let’s just bite down on something and take what’s coming to us until then.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
So go back to square one again and hope it works, and if not just repeat the process?
 
Tomo said:
Needs to sort out the midfield balance. Backline is fine, Romero out and Danso can come in. Front line with be better hopefully with Muani and Solanke coming back. Midfield doesn’t look right and you can’t win or control games without that resolution.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
worrying that hes still starting bentancur, its a terrible balance next to palhinia and it puts us up against momentum.

right now it looks like it should be gray in there, he at least looks like he can put a foot on the ball and play forward, he might not be good enough, but sarr and berg are not that type of player, they want to get about the pitch more, and bentancur is just not good enough.

i suppose being 1 ball playing CM and 2 quality forwards away from having a good side is a positive tho....
 
_mehstg said:
You think he is delivering material improvement??? Jesus Christ... I've seen the opposite of improvement... dull, boring, low risk, attritional bollocks... sorry but if we spend 200m on new players next summer you'll be blaming them... we have 20+ internationals in this squad and if you added up their international caps it would be well over 1,000... these players are not the problem. They are being setup to play a flavour of football that died a death in the late 80s. If he doesn't get Champions League football next season then he has failed. No if's no but's... that's the barometer every Spurs manager should be measured against. I cannot for the life of me understand why parts of our fanbase are wetting themselves with an 8th place finish. It's fucking bonkers!!!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Unfortunately, there are a lot of gutless Spurs fans who are in their comfort zone with an 8th place finish. They have the same amount of backbone as that performance did last night.

There's just no defending that style of play. Some players are clearly not playing for each other. There was no creative play in the final 3rd at all. It's like they've never trained together.

For all the praise Frank has had for improving players in the past, why our young players getting worse? They didn't even look like they want to be playing.
 
LevyOutNow said:
Unfortunately, there are a lot of gutless Spurs fans who are in their comfort zone with an 8th place finish. They have the same amount of backbone as that performance did last night.

There's just no defending that style of play. Some players are clearly not playing for each other. There was no creative play in the final 3rd at all. It's like they've never trained together.

For all the praise Frank has had for improving players in the past, why our young players getting worse? They didn't even look like they want to be playing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

What's the alternative here, fire Frank and go and poach Pep?
 
Gatsby said:
We literally finished 17th and 22 league defeats last season.

Where do people honest think we will finish?!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The bookies has us around 6th or 7th before the season started so that would be a reasonable finish. Most were hoping we could maybe exceed expectations a little and go close to a top 4 finish but appreciate that would have prob been an overachievement.

Anything below 8th without a decent cup run would be a terrible season by all metrics. We finished around 8th in the season's where we sacked Conte and Mourinho. The European run saved Ange last year.
 
This is not specifically a dig at Frank, but more the trend with a lot of new coaches who look to small margins and percentage gains as some kind of dogma.

Perhaps there is evidence that long throws produce more chances.. However, when you're chasing a game against a team holding on for what they have, such as we were at the weekend. They want us to take an age with the long throw, because it wastes time, slows momentum and lets them get back and get set into their shape. Sometimes, forgetting the data and getting the ball back in quickly to get the crowd engaged and keep some feeling of urgency is the best bet..

This idea of never shooting from a low percentage position.. Again perhaps the numbers dictate, that this is better.. However, it forgets the fact that you are playing against "humans". Humans who have memories and doubts.. Perhaps it's worthwhile sprinkling in a few more low percentage shots, because the defender then has to think "do I close him down when he's 20 yards out or do I sit in". If you know that the attacker will always look to pass rather than shoot, your mind is made up for you.


Utilising data in terms of approach is all well and good and more than useful.. However, it should never be forgotten that a game of football is organic, alive and hot blooded.. It's not played on a computer.
 
8andA1/2Peppers said:
This is not specifically a dig at Frank, but more the trend with a lot of new coaches who look to small margins and percentage gains as some kind of dogma.

Perhaps there is evidence that long throws produce more chances.. However, when you're chasing a game against a team holding on for what they have, such as we were at the weekend. They want us to take an age with the long throw, because it wastes time, slows momentum and lets them get back and get set into their shape. Sometimes, forgetting the data and getting the ball back in quickly to get the crowd engaged and keep some feeling of urgency is the best bet..

This idea of never shooting from a low percentage position.. Again perhaps the numbers dictate, that this is better.. However, it forgets the fact that you are playing against "humans". Humans who have memories and doubts.. Perhaps it's worthwhile sprinkling in a few more low percentage shots, because the defender then has to think "do I close him down when he's 20 yards out or do I sit in". If you know that the attacker will always look to pass rather than shoot, your mind is made up for you.


Utilising data in terms of approach is all well and good and more than useful.. However, it should never be forgotten that a game of football is organic, alive and hot blooded.. It's not played on a computer.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
💯 this!!!!

Playing the percentages makes teams predictable. Defenders know you'll rarely cross or shoot from distance, so are always ready to block any forward pass.

Teams have to be unpredictable if they're going to be consistently good going forward.
 
LevyOutNow said:
Any manager who can motivate their players to play for each other and look like they at least want to try and win games.

Don't think that's too much to ask to be fair.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Most managers would be struggling with a team who finished 17th last season and with 50 goal contributions in the Premier League missing from the team...

Aphex said:
I would have hired Iraola in the summer and I think we made yet another mistake.

But now we have Frank, we have no choice but to see it through unless he starts churning out Ange level results.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Also struggled initially with Bournemouth and has had the benefit of managing a team one game per week, he's only reaping the benefits now because he's in his 3rd season...I didn't hear any shouts of Iraola when he first got to the Prem.
 
--------------------- Vicario ---------------------

--Porro---Romero---VdV----Spence/Udogi

----------------------Palhinha--------------------

-------Sarr----------Bergvall---------Gray------

------Kudus-------------------KoloMuani-------

I am not saying this is technically sound, or this is a fix. Just do something different. Players who haven't proved them selves yet, need to sit down and see if others can do the job. Let's the youngsters go out there and run at opposition. Sarr/Beg/Gray can run all day long and not get tired. Give them a run. If you don't have the quality and creativity use effort, energy, and youth. Idk, do your job and show us something. It's tiring looking at the team sheet every week and you end up with the same names.

Things are not working anyways, so why not mix things up and give others a chance.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top