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Manager Thomas Frank
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
- Start date
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Our CF’s have zero link up ability.
We really only have two midfielders who look comfortable on the ball in tight areas and that’s Bergvall and Xavi. They’ve only been on the pitch together when Xavi is wide and Kudus is the only player in the side who has any semblance of hold up play so everything is forced wide.
At this level, you can’t expect a midfielder to drive the ball forward on his own every time.
Richy and Tel are causing this problem.
We really only have two midfielders who look comfortable on the ball in tight areas and that’s Bergvall and Xavi. They’ve only been on the pitch together when Xavi is wide and Kudus is the only player in the side who has any semblance of hold up play so everything is forced wide.
At this level, you can’t expect a midfielder to drive the ball forward on his own every time.
Richy and Tel are causing this problem.
These are the attackers he is working with:
Richarlison
Johnson
Kudus
Xavi
Odobert
Tel
What are people expecting from such a group after 1.5 months? At least when Ange started he could pick Son, Maddison, Kulusevski, Perisic, etc. Due to injuries Frank is often having to use Sarr and Bergvall as number 10s even though they were defensive midfielders last season.
Richarlison
Johnson
Kudus
Xavi
Odobert
Tel
What are people expecting from such a group after 1.5 months? At least when Ange started he could pick Son, Maddison, Kulusevski, Perisic, etc. Due to injuries Frank is often having to use Sarr and Bergvall as number 10s even though they were defensive midfielders last season.
Yeah this is why I am not willing to throw Frank under the bus yet. ENIC need to put their money where their mouth is and sort the squad out.
Alternatively will we realise ENIC have always been the issue and Frank will be expected to get a tune out of mediocre players and cast off in two seasons
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRsuKwYsqYk
*Does anyone know who that female journo is?
She consistently asks the best questions every presser.
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Agreed. We need to back Frank for a few windows at least, then cast judgment. I've seen enough early on to see he will be significantly better than Ange, but anyone who expects us to compete strongly on the PL front over 38 games AND the CL with that line of attack needs to get themselves checked out.
The Leeds game tomorrow is pretty significant given its before an international break and the last few performances have been underwhelming.
Any sort of win would be massive and mean we've a pretty positive and relaxed international break. Any sort of defeat will just be horrible. A 0-0 draw wouldn't inspire much confidence either. Really hope we go out with a bang! Momentum is huge in football and this Leeds game feels like a big one.
Any sort of win would be massive and mean we've a pretty positive and relaxed international break. Any sort of defeat will just be horrible. A 0-0 draw wouldn't inspire much confidence either. Really hope we go out with a bang! Momentum is huge in football and this Leeds game feels like a big one.
Ok... good to know I have 18 months of regressive football to look forward to before I can raise my concerns.
Not sure where all this drama is coming from.
This isn't some sort of crunch, do or die game for our season.
We're away to a team who hasn't lost in their stadium for over a year and will be super confident and have made a decent start to the league.
We still have shit Richie up front and no LWr.
Same deficiencies to deal with up top.
Also, our players were conditioned to lose in the game before international breaks by that useless fat blob.
Before he got his clown claws into us, this was our record before International breaks - 7 game ubeaten run:
Now Frank's got to get into their heads and rid them of this habit.
The curious need to sew seeds of impending doom and disaster before every game is tedious.
It's just not the case.
We're at the beginning of a new era and things will take time to gel.
All will flow more for us when we have our attacking players back.
Before then, any talk of nightmare scenarios are ridiculous.
Especially when we're in the top third of the table.
And trying to pre-seed the atmosphere with anti-Frank sentiment is suspect af.
*not targeted at you, exclusively, btw.
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yeah jesus i keep forgetting about our record before an international break! God its gonna suck balls if we lose the early kick off tomorrow. That'll be the weekend ruinedNot sure where all this drama is coming from.
This isn't some sort of crunch, do or die game for our season.
We're away to a team who hasn't lost in their stadium for over a year and will be super confident and have made a decent start to the league.
We still have shit Richie up front and no LWr.
Same deficiencies to deal with up top.
Also, our players were conditioned to lose in the game before international breaks by that useless fat blob.
Before he got his clown claws into us, this was our record before International breaks - 7 game ubeaten run:
Now Frank's got to get into their heads and rid them of this habit.
The curious need to sew seeds of impending doom and disaster before every game is tedious.
It's just not the case.
We're at the beginning of a new era and things will take time to gel.
All will flow more for us when we have our attacking players back.
Before then, any talk of nightmare scenarios are ridiculous.
Especially when we're in the top third of the table.
And trying to pre-seed the atmosphere with anti-Frank sentiment is suspect af.
*not targeted at you, exclusively, btw.
If I'd seen even a semblance of good football or attacking intent, I'd be happy enough. But we look utterly lost, like strangers on the pitch going forward. There's teams with much, much less quality than us who can still attack. Doncaster created good chances against us ffs, there's no excuses there.
Then on the flip side, we've given up more chances than we have created, so we're not as great at the back as is being banded about. We've been lucky teams are wasting opportunities.
That's why I'm concerned. We can't keep coming back late on over a season, it's not sustainable, we need to figure it out quick or come November, we're going to find out. I'm by no means Frank out, but there's cracks being papered over, and I'm baffled that most of our fans just have this nonchalant, he's new attitude. We're only 2 points ahead of where Nuno was at this stage of his season, with harder fixtures to boot. I think there's definitely right to worry, but hopefully this weekend we can finally kick on.
Yet...
We still have a dysfunctional team in the 2nd and 3rd phase.
Important elements are missing (squad-wise in general and through injury), yet we're doing pretty damned well, regardless.
People are also being selective about our attacking intent.
The drive has been there, consistently; the problem has been it breaking down or amounting to nothing due to obvious issues in the attacking phase.
Our performance against Brighton was our best in terms of flow, considering our current restrictions.
I think people aren't plucking out enough of the good things that have happened with the limiting factors Frank's having to deal with.
Not balanced.
Our game will develop more in this direction, especially when we have players back:
Brighton & Hove Albion Tottenham Hotspur Full Match - Premier League | 20 September 2025
Off to a flying start in the post-Daniel Levy era, Tottenham make the trip to the South Coast for a Premier League clash with Brighton, who lost 2-1 away to
www.footballorgin.com
I'm not being selective about our attacking intent one iota. That's disingenuous. We have one attacking move, get wide and cross. We have no creative anything in the middle of the pitch, it's actually shockingly bad. Also, the two long term absentees have been replaced, by players you've described as class, yet we still look clueless. The left is an issue, but he says he sanctioned the Tel signing, so he got his winger.Yet...
We still have a dysfunctional team in the 2nd and 3rd phase.
Important elements are missing (squad-wise in general and through injury), yet we're doing pretty damned well, regardless.
People are also being selective about our attacking intent.
The drive has been there, consistently; the problem has been it breaking down or amounting to nothing due to obvious issues in the attacking phase.
Our performance against Brighton was our best in terms of flow, considering our current restrictions.
I think people aren't plucking out enough of the good things that have happened with the limiting factors Frank's having to deal with.
Not balanced.
Our game will develop more in this direction, especially when we have players back:
Brighton & Hove Albion Tottenham Hotspur Full Match - Premier League | 20 September 2025
Off to a flying start in the post-Daniel Levy era, Tottenham make the trip to the South Coast for a Premier League clash with Brighton, who lost 2-1 away to
We're also giving up lots of chances to the opposition now, basically after the west Ham game, we're very easy got at, and been let off the hook massively.
We're over performing our XG by 4. That's a huge number at this stage of a season, and without a clinical striker (and no, 9 goal Dom won't magically fix that), that's not going to last. When you look at the our league place with no context, it's fine. But we're 12th on expected points, our XGA is more than XG. That will balance itself out of we keep playing like this. Our fixture list has also been very favourable. If we can't get things looking like there's some sort of idea come November, we're going to be on the end of some very bad ones. Show me these good attacks that you speak of? I've watched every game, we look pedestrian, aside from Bergvall passing it through to BJ against Doncaster, I don't remember any good attacks down the middle. That was what, 3/4 games ago. We made a ridiculously poor Wolves team look like prime Barcelona. Ifs and buts aren't good enough.
You're gripe is the DIMENSION of our attacking intent.
Not the intent itself.
If we had Solanke/Kulu/Kolo/Xavi/Kudus/Maddison in play, you absolutely know the shape of our game in the final third would be nothing like this.
We are currently HUGELY limited.
This is such a stupid narrative when we all fucking know Richie/Tel/Johnson/Odobert is the pits.
Gimme a fucking break here.
Tedious.
Come back to me on November and December and tell me what a shit narrative it is. There are lots of teams with worse players than we have, and yet, they can still generate something. Lots of teams don't play with a 10 but can create chances. All teams have to do against us is drop to a back 3 and it completely nullifies us, as Wolves demonstrated. I thought Frank was a shrewd tactician? Right now, we have one attacking trick.
You never mentioned the trend that we're now easier to create chances against, is that because we're missing Maddison and Decky too? And as I mentioned, we replaced those players with players you said were class, I'm not sure they are, but you reckon they are.
We created better chances under feckin Nuno as well, we had higher xg then. If things don't improve on the .month of October, and we go into playing Villa, Newcastle, Liverpool, United, Chelsea, Woolwich and Palace. I don't see where points come from.
You're just in denial because you clearly love him and are blinded by it. It's been less than convincing. I want him to succeed and get us playing, but this is poor and the results, against the run of play, won't last.
Pretty sure the narrative up til a couple of weeks ago was how Frank is some sort of wizard at improving attacking players too. Seems to have gone the complete opposite way so far.
It's 4 months in now. He's had a preseason, he got in the players he wanted. It's far too long for him to be in charge and we still don't look like we know what we're doing. I don't watch us now thinking we're going. To play well, it's almost watching just to get through it now. That's not good.
Edit because I forgot to back to it. My gripe is indeed with the INTENT of our attacking play. We spend most of the games now chasing shadows, not being able to string two passes together. Then we do go forward, it's so utterly predictable. Our top goal scorer, own goal, isn't going to bag us 20 a season and keep bailing us out. If you think things are going well, that's fine, but to say that I'm being tedious, for saying things which are true, which are happening, and not some "oh, but if X happens we'll be fine", no that is tedious.
Franks gonna get it right vs Leeds
We will bully them with a set piece goal, then catch them pushing up more than they are comfortable and punish it. Like an evolution of the Wet Spam game
We will bully them with a set piece goal, then catch them pushing up more than they are comfortable and punish it. Like an evolution of the Wet Spam game
Bookmarked.
Good well rounded retort there. I think you've swayed me.