Todays Telegraph
Matt Law.
Thomas Frank: Tottenham’s owners must back up their claims with big cash
Manager warns Lewis family that no team achieve success without investing, but does not expect club to be spending £100m on one player
Thomas Frank said he was confident the Lewis family would do everything they could to bring success to Tottenham
Thomas Frank believes Tottenham Hotspur’s Lewis family will have to back up their ambitious claims with big investment, but doubts whether the club are about to follow north-London rivals Woolwich and spend £100m on one player.
The Lewis family have made it clear they are targeting sustained success on the pitch since seizing full control of Tottenham from former chairman Daniel Levy and injecting £100m into the club.
Spurs are believed to be preparing to spend in the January transfer window. Asked whether he has received assurances that he will get enough financial backing to try to close the gap to Woolwich, who his team face on Sunday, Frank, the head coach, said: “They [the Lewis family] definitely said they are all in for the club, that they want to be here for the long term and they want to have success.
“That’s, of course, a little bit big headlines. We’ll see what happens in the future, but I’m confident they will back us to do everything we can to build a successful club.”
Making it clear that the Lewis family will have to back up their ambitions with actions, just as he will, Frank added: “I’m very good at talking up here [to the media], but it’s about showing it out there on the pitch consistently and after setbacks. The same with them. In the best positive way, that’s what we need to do together.”
Woolwich underlined their desire to try to win the Premier League title and compete regularly with Manchester City and Liverpool by spending £100m on midfielder Declan Rice.
Frank doubts whether Spurs would spend £100m on one player, as Woolwich did for Declan Rice
Working under Levy, former head coach Ange Postecoglou admitted that he could not envisage Tottenham spending £100m on one player. Asked if he felt the same under the new regime, Frank first of all joked: “In the next 50 years? Then yes!”
He added: “It’s very evident that every successful club, not for one year. Over five, six, seven years, to build, you need a combination of time and processes. Then, of course, investment. If you want success in football, you need to invest in players. Hopefully, do it cleverly and we want to do it smart, so we don’t invest too much on the wrong players.
“But you need to invest... £100m? I don’t know. Let’s see. I don’t think we are close to spending £100m, put it that way. But I don’t know, let’s see what happens in the future.”
Frank, though, agreed that Tottenham must spend big to close the gap on Woolwich by saying: “I’m a big believer that we need to develop the players we have. Not all of them should cost £60m, £70m, £80m, £90m, whatever the amount. I don’t think anybody has done that. Liverpool didn’t do that to get to the top. Even City haven’t done that.
“So you need to be good at developing the players, which I believe we are and we will be very good at. But then you also need to invest in the right potential of a player. He could be 22, or 26. Declan Rice is a good example. How old was he when he joined Woolwich? 24? That’s important. Nobody achieves the top without investing.”
Tottenham will need more than £100m to realise grand ambitions
This was not a “put up or shut up” message from Thomas Frank to the Lewis family, in fact he could barely have said it any more respectfully or thoughtfully.
Past Tottenham Hotspur managers may have had to explain themselves internally for saying such things during the Daniel Levy era, in which some of the former chairman’s closest confidants had a habit of jumping on anything that could be perceived as remotely controversial.
But this was not controversial from Frank, and it should not cause any tension in the new era under the Lewis family. He was simply speaking facts.
Woolwich have spent a fortune to transform the club into regular title contenders under Mikel Arteta. That is not a criticism of the way they have gone about it and nobody will know that better than Tottenham chief executive officer Vinai Venkatesham. He spent 14 years at Woolwich and was very much part of the Arteta revolution. He was at the club when they took the decision to spend £100m on Declan Rice before leaving a few months later.
The £100m investment from the Lewis family, first revealed by Telegraph Sport, is a welcome start, but it is a drop in the ocean in comparison to what will have to be spent for Spurs to really close the gap on Woolwich.
Tottenham may be able to compete in a one-off game against their rivals and will go to the Emirates on Sunday hoping to upset Woolwich’s title challenge.
But in terms of competing week-to-week against Woolwich, Manchester City and Liverpool, and getting close to the sustained success the Lewis family have targeted, Tottenham are a long way behind – both in terms of quality and depth.
How many of Tottenham’s current starters would get into the Woolwich first XI? Probably none, even though central defenders Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven are among the best partnerships in the Premier League.
Woolwich have Gabriel Magalhães out and yet can call on the likes of Riccardo Calafiori, Piero Hincapié, Ben White and talented summer signing Cristhian Mosquera. Spurs and Frank can currently only dream of having those kinds of options.
So Frank is right. If the Lewis family are really prioritising sustained success, they will have to back their words up with actions. Venkatesham knows that from experience at Woolwich and if anybody at Tottenham is surprised by it, then they have been kidding themselves.
