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Manager Thomas Frank

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Are you Frank Out or In?

  • Total voters
    623
sudoku said:
Courtesy BJK

This was the match squad of Conte's first league game in charge, the guy who got 105 points from 56 league games.

105 / 56 = 1.88
1.88 x 38 = 71.5



I see a quite ordinary group of players except the obvious two in Kane and Son.

Frank's tactics' suck.
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It's been said before but we really needed to back Conte. I know he was a headcase, but he was a winner. I kinda miss his energy on the sidelines.

He wanted Bastoni, and got Longlet. No wonder he went nuts!
 
Larry David said:
Why has this mop head not been sacked yet
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He’s had a trim tbf

eggs GIF
 
Brian Fantana said:
Exactly. There were hundreds of complaints on here last season that our attacking was a pile of rubbish.
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I don't know if it might be a little bubble over this forum.

Last season I was generally reading reddit, watching you tube videos, and pundit commentary. I didn't bother at all with the any of the forums because it's usually quite 'tribal' - SC reads like people who are fawning over the "ITK" or A&C opinions or they get banned. TFC is normally people who get banned from everywhere else for having strong feels one way or another. People don't really get 'banned' on reddit - even though there are a lot of plastics and nobbers - so the discord is generally quite broad in both directions.

What I do remember, quite vividly, is that the football was absolutely dire either side of the Chelsea game, but particularly after it. There was a decreasing number of people, over time, arguing it was injuries, and moving over to the "we're just badly set up" side.

e.g. a small chunk of this period -

December:
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/coys/comments/1hmsjoa/ange_out/
Been a fan for nearly 33 years, but this season has been a fucking struggle, the odd high, but so many constant lows, today might be the day where I just write this season off completely.
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then February ish:
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tottenham/comments/1j8vkgf/are_you_ange_in_or_ange_out/
His argument this whole season was that injuries were our problem but now that we have a large chunk of our players back we seem to be playing the same if not worse. He’s not getting the most out of the squad
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It's not the same...it's even worse...we aren't even bothering to attack and slowing down in counter attacking
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On here though, it feels a bit like people remember it very differently and not every game people complaining about how hard it is to watch, giving up season tickets, blaming Son for the shitty attacking style
 
CJJ said:
I don't think it is, in terms of what fans would say.

You could play low-block and counter against a strong pressing side like Liverpool and get good xG that way, but people would tend to not see it as 'effective attacking football' if it was a smash and grab.

It's mostly why stats don't really work in football, despite people trying to force it all the time. It's far much nuanced that way.

Fans are quite fickle though and will have contradictory metrics on what makes a game 'attractive' or 'attacking', because you could have AVB style football where you don't let the opponent get the ball and yet also barely get a shot on goal because the other team has 11 behind the ball. People would say it's not effective or attacking, even if 99% of the match is in the opponents half.

Equally, you could be the team on the other side of that, who spend 1% of the match - a mere 30 seconds per counter - and score two goals with an xG of 2. Watching 89 mins of defending would probably not qualify either
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I agree it does depend on fans' definitions, but surely 'effective attacking football' is effectively whatever gets you lots of good goal-scoring chances, irrespective of style, possession etc. That's why I deliberately deviated from the 'attractive' part. So whatever exact phrase / terminology you want to give it, a long-term high XG does by definition suggest football that regularly gets you in a position to have high-quality goal chances (or lots of lower quality ones), thereby giving a relatively high probability of scoring more goals, surely we agree on that?

I'm not saying for a second that xG is all fans should or do care about (most of them hate it I find, though that's usually because they don't really understand it) - I'm just saying that in response to your comment that "xG isn't really a marker of attractive football" (which I absolutely agree with), it is nevertheless a marker of football that regularly gets you in a position to have high-quality goal chances (or lots of lower quality ones), thereby giving a relatively high probability of scoring more goals, and that's not something that any fans should be completely uncaring about.

Also, I'm not sure I agree that "stats don't really work in football" - the xG league table at the end of each season is a reasonable proxy for the actual league table for most teams (obviously there will be some outliers, as with most stats). So again perhaps it's just terminology here, but over the course of a season, if you have the highest (positive) difference between xG and xGA, you will finish in the top 6, and if the have the highest (negative) difference between them, you will finish in the bottom 6. That's not a 'rule', it's just what hsitory shows has pretty much always happened, proving the relevance / significance of xG. Of course stats should never be used in isolation, they are one of a number of useful tools (including actualy results, and what we see with our eyes) to determine how well a team is playing. :)
 
sudoku said:
We have some very good players and I believe Frank is not getting the best out of them.
Why was Berg on the wing last night when Oddjob was fit?
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Mate I'm not here to police people's opinions on the manager - that Deranger stuff - but I just believe it's much harder for a Caretaker to to get this spurs squad going than, say, O'Neill at Celtic.

But I could be wrong. I'm just scarred by the Stellini/Mason interregnum. And I'm naturally predisposed to to keeping managers unless they lose the dressing room / risk relegation. As I said I'm conservative in that respect.

But yeah - things can and should improve.
 
McCOYS said:
I know it's only a paper cup, but it's probably the only image of a man holding a paper cup that I'll remember for the rest of my life, it's surreal, it's comical, it's dumb, I feel like it didn't really happen and was something I dreamt.

I've said it before, the man's a walking PR disaster. He pays homage to Arteta, keeps reminding everyone about being 17th last season, has a go at supporters for not being proper, the narrative about the Spurs fan he met at a restaurant, we don't deserve to be in the Champions League, he's not enjoying the job, and now he's drinking out of a paper cup with the gooners badge on it.
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Exactly. The cup thing pisses me off almost as much as the result. He never noticed ? No-one near him noticed? Shirley not.
 
CJJ said:
There was a decreasing number of people, over time, arguing it was injuries, and moving over to the "we're just badly set up" side.
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This was me, up until about this point of the season.

Results were poor, but we were in games, lots of ifs and buts, injuries to consider (much like you argue this season)

So I was on board with Ange for a good while. Problem was when we got those players back we got worse, not better, and all/any excuses validity just evaporated. We were simply that bad.

I dont want Ange back, I dont look back on him wistfully, nothing of the sort - but when I compare last season to this - I do think Ange had much greater conviction, did genuinely set us up to try and win games, did genuinely want attacking, goals, spectacle...

And Frank to me is the opposite
 
This was my primary concern with Frank, and it’s still the same. You cannot be an elite team without the intention to control games with the ball. There is a lot of quality in this squad; the performances and the approach should be much better.

Something I want to talk about is how incompetent Spurs are when it comes to recruiting managers. You can see the thought process, and it’s very immature. They had Pochettino, who did a good job but didn’t win anything, so they went for “serial winners” in Mourinho and Conte. Their football was “boring”, so they went for the most “fun” manager in Europe with Postecoglou. Defensively, the team was disastrous, so they went for the most “solid” coach available.

Every managerial appointment is a drastic reaction to the last. There is no sporting vision for how to build something that lasts and takes the club to the top. Ironically, Spurs are one of the easiest projects to solve because of the financial scale of the club and the squad at hand. All they need is competence.
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View: https://x.com/meiaarmador__/status/2009203426954289429?s=46
 
scarletjim said:
I agree it does depend on fans' definitions, but surely 'effective attacking football' is effectively whatever gets you lots of good goal-scoring chances, irrespective of style, possession etc. That's why I deliberately deviated from the 'attractive' part. So whatever exact phrase / terminology you want to give it, a long-term high XG does by definition suggest football that regularly gets you in a position to have high-quality goal chances (or lots of lower quality ones), thereby giving a relatively high probability of scoring more goals, surely we agree on that?

I'm not saying for a second that xG is all fans should or do care about (most of them hate it I find, though that's usually because they don't really understand it) - I'm just saying that in response to your comment that "xG isn't really a marker of attractive football" (which I absolutely agree with), it is nevertheless a marker of football that regularly gets you in a position to have high-quality goal chances (or lots of lower quality ones), thereby giving a relatively high probability of scoring more goals, and that's not something that any fans should be completely uncaring about.

Also, I'm not sure I agree that "stats don't really work in football" - the xG league table at the end of each season is a reasonable proxy for the actual league table for most teams (obviously there will be some outliers, as with most stats). So again perhaps it's just terminology here, but over the course of a season, if you have the highest (positive) difference between xG and xGA, you will finish in the top 6, and if the have the highest (negative) difference between them, you will finish in the bottom 6. That's not a 'rule', it's just what hsitory shows has pretty much always happened, proving the relevance / significance of xG. Of course stats should never be used in isolation, they are one of a number of useful tools (including actualy results, and what we see with our eyes) to determine how well a team is playing. :)
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A lot of it is so easy to be corrupted by the players in the system though.

You could put the most attractive footballing team together and stick this version of Kolo Muani at the top of it. If he's dawdling with the ball, passing it to no one, or losing possession when it would be a high xG shot if only it was taken, it's chalked off. If a player is judged offside, the xG is chalked off. If the referee blows for a foul that wasn't in the play leading up to it (e.g. someone like Romero deciding to push someone off the ball), it's chalked off.

It isn't really a black and white thing, but I just mean that the stats are often very blind.

With Kane and Son in this team, I honestly believed we'd comfortably have dug ourselves out of most of the holes here and be somewhere around Liverpool in the table right now. We've not been playing anywhere near as badly as we did under Nuno, and I wouldn't say the players look as lost as they did under Stellini, but they are simply putting in poor performances.
I still think people would be calling for Frank to be gone though as football is like politics these days, where people want good looking charismatic leaders, even though it's basically nothing to do with the job they do. There will be people who always decide they don't like the manager and nothing else will matter (see: Sherwood).

I would repeat, size 72, bold, underline - my position isn't defending the current manager, but is quashing the idea that the ones that came before were all that much better. Not only is this guy the first in over 10 years to not have Kane/Son, but he also doesn't have any of the replacements either, so we have to wonder how long any of the others would have lasted with some of the donkeys we have up front, because we can see with our own eyes that there's low xG because of players doing dumb things in the final third.
 
Distaste for scouse said:
He's going nowhere... Get used to it

1. We won't want to pay the compensation to him and his staff.
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I wonder how much the money is even an issue, it always materialises when it suits them.

Also, we can put him on a gardening leave sort of situation (we've done before) and just pay wages until he gets a new job = cheaper

Distaste for scouse said:
2. The board won't want to admit they got it wrong yet again and will drag their feet as long as they can.
5. The board have indicated they want to give a manager time
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I get this, and I expect its true - but there comes a point where continuing with Frank despite the onfield shambles also makes them look wrong. Theres a point where all they can do to save face is pull the trigger.


Distaste for scouse said:
3. Franks not had his best eleven fit all season due to long-term injuries and I suspect he's been granted some dispensation for this by the board who as I mentioned in a post elsewhere look to have pretty much written this season off. Of course they won't say that part out loud , but the lack of activity in the window speaks volumes.
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Managers always have injuries to contest with, the best ones cope. I can see it as a contributor for poor performances but not to the level we're seeing (IMO)


Distaste for scouse said:
4. There is nobody out there that would want to come here. If United are struggling to get a full time manager and going with a stop gap it's indicative that it's a bit barren.
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There always is. Only real question is if they are right for the job or not - and given the way the clubs run I have to say while I think Frank has to go - when I see that announcement itll fill me with trepidation as well
 
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