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Manager Thomas Frank

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Are you Frank Out or In?

  • Total voters
    623
CJJ said:
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.
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I don't disagree with your examples above (and btw I am not talking about any of this in relation to Frank, just in relation to xG theory), but I am disagreeing with "the stats are often very blind". As I've said before, it is a fact that the highest positive difference in xG every season will finish very high in the league, and the highest negative XG will finish very low in the league, so xG is definitely a good proxy over a reasonable timeframe for 'is my team playing well enough to score lots of points', or something akin to that. I'm not denying that there will be outliers, whether they are caused by playing style or particular players etc, so the stats will (to use one of your terms) 'occasionally be blind', but I do feel that you aren't giving xG sufficient 'credit' generally as a proxy for playing in a way that over time will get you lots of points. (Apologies if that's just my misunderstanding of your thrust).

If you're saying that Frank's particular situation is such an outlier, or can't reasonably be compared to those of our previous managers, for whatever reason, then that's fine (well, it's a different conversation which I'd be happy to engage on separately to this one), but the overall xG theory is both useful and significant, and I'd expect someone like you to give it proper credit (and perhaps you do, perhaps you've just been a bit flippant / overly general here with your assessment of xG, or perhaps I've incorrectly interpreted you that way).
 
Phomesy said:
The year is 2076. Woolwich have won the Woolwich World Champion of Woolwich Cup for the 35th year in a row. Spurs fans are kept in pus-filled pods, their electrical energy used to power the Mikel Arteta AI Super Robot which now controls the Matrix.

But still CJJ CJJ continues his dogged quest to lecture Spurs fans that, actually, things were never really much better...
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You're well into troll territory now and are adding nothing to the thread, except trying to scrape some kind of bully-style circle jerk.

The squad is shit. Do you seriously expect someone to swoop in and make any of them look better? Muani plays like a deer on ice, Richi has good stats but isn't an elite striker. We have got to the point where people have started to convince themselves Tel is the answer to LW.

You seem to not be capable of accepting that we aren't going to succeed under any manager with the attack we have available
 
BJK said:
That's the very first goal that we conceded this season

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And that's the most recent one

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When I saw this against Sunderland a few days ago..

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..I was reminded of this that took place in mid-October apparently

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Another instance from the same day back in mid-October. Not very dissimilar to the one Semenyo scored is it?

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..Also similar

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Kept a clean sheet against Palace, but not without allowing chances like this

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In case you think we've been ridiculously unlucky with those "belters" ,other teams also concede similar goals when they defend these shots in a similar highly conservative and lethargic manner. Two from the same game

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By contrast, these from yesterday are much better; although the first one where Palhinha only tiptoes towards the attacker instead of rushing at him is still not ideal

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For someone who's quite risk averse with his team's passing and movement, Frank is surely taking a huge risk with these target practice shots. Players at this level will bury these at a rate high enough to cause some serious headache, as evidenced by Villa and Bournemouth games in particular where those goals were the main culprit behind the losses.

This is not working.
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maybe they just can't coach ?
 
scarletjim said:
I don't disagree with your examples above (and btw I am not talking about any of this in relation to Frank, just in relation to xG theory), but I am disagreeing with "the stats are often very blind". As I've said before, it is a fact that the highest positive difference in xG every season will finish very high in the league, and the highest negative XG will finish very low in the league, so xG is definitely a good proxy over a reasonable timeframe for 'is my team playing well enough to score lots of points', or something akin to that. I'm not denying that there will be outliers, whether they are caused by playing style or particular players etc, so the stats will (to use one of your terms) 'occasionally be blind', but I do feel that you aren't giving xG sufficient 'credit' generally as a proxy for playing in a way that over time will get you lots of points. (Apologies if that's just my misunderstanding of your thrust).

If you're saying that Frank's particular situation is such an outlier, or can't reasonably be compared to those of our previous managers, for whatever reason, then that's fine (well, it's a different conversation which I'd be happy to engage on separately to this one), but the overall xG theory is both useful and significant, and I'd expect someone like you to give it proper credit (and perhaps you do, perhaps you've just been a bit flippant / overly general here with your assessment of xG, or perhaps I've incorrectly interpreted you that way).
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No, it makes sense that teams who have the highest xG and lowest xG would expect to finish in opposite sides of the table.

I'm not arguing the relationship of xG and xGA to 'results'.

It's simple a matter than style and results are not related, and as such you can't use stats to accurately measure style.
 
Matt1882 said:
Whilst I largely agree with you on most of this....
Many of these players were letting Conte down, then the interim after, then Ange and now Frank.
They look untrained and I'm not sure how long it'll take anyone to rectify it.
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Good point. We need to always keep in mind that those players are Levy's players. They were largely brought in without consent or agreement from the manager. With the exception of few "really special" managers, most of them want to pick at least half the team to fit their style.
 
CJJ said:
The squad is shit. Do you seriously expect someone to swoop in and make any of them look better? Muani plays like a deer on ice, Richi has good stats but isn't an elite striker. We have got to the point where people have started to convince themselves Tel is the answer to LW.

You seem to not be capable of accepting that we aren't going to succeed under any manager with the attack we have available
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My guy - I've been saying exactly this 🔝for 2 years now. 🤷‍♂️
 
postbox said:
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
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CJJ CJJ RE: our conversation just now about xG, moving it on to talk about Frank / Angee etc specifically, I started to wrtie something, then read the above, and decided that is sums up exactly how I feel.

Even if someone does completely ignore xG etc, even just from watching games it seems to me that Ange went out to try to win with whatever players he had available, whereas Frank goes out to try not to lose with whatever players he has available. Ange wanted us to attack, Frank wants us to defend. I fully recognise that others could see it differently, as is their right of course, but that's how it looks to me.

A bit like postbox , I honestly believed in Oct-Dec 23 that injuries were the main reason for us falling apart, but when those players started coming back and we got worse, I became somewhat cynical. Then from Aug 24 to Oct 24, I thought we were very unlucky (something borne out by the xG tables from that period), often failing to get 3 points when I thought we deserved them, then after that, when our general play fell apart and every metric - eye test, results, xG, whatever - all said we were rubbish, I became 'Ange out' (in Jan 26 I believe). But throughout most of Ange's tenure, he was clerly more interested in winning games than Frank is now.
 
Notabadsquad said:
I thonk if sny announcement were made re: Frank, it would also require news at the same time of an interim or new appointment.

That might explain the seemingl lsck of noise.

That, or carry on,we believe in you, and January signings are on their way.
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Very good point - and probably right

When we do let him go itll be essential they combine it with "and heres how we move forward..."



CJJ said:
The squad is shit. Do you seriously expect someone to swoop in and make any of them look better? Muani plays like a deer on ice, Richi has good stats but isn't an elite striker. We have got to the point where people have started to convince themselves Tel is the answer to LW.

You seem to not be capable of accepting that we aren't going to succeed under any manager with the attack we have available
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I dont think the squad is shit. I do think someone could come in and make them look better. Though it requires the right "someone".

Muani ended up very poor in the match, but early in the match thread - when we started brightly - everyone was singing his praises.

Amazing how players can appear and actually be a lot better when the game is going their way more. A good manager sets teams up - no matter how compromised on quality/balance - to get the game going their way as much as possible and therefore the best out of those players.

I dont think Muani is great at all, Ive not seen enough of him to fully judge - but I have seen enough to believe he can be better than he currently is. Even if only in glimpses and highlights - he has more to him that we are seeing now.

Tel is not a LW, Ive never felt he was, but its undeniable he was probably our best attacker last night even from that position.
 
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CJJ said:
No, it makes sense that teams who have the highest xG and lowest xG would expect to finish in opposite sides of the table.

I'm not arguing the relationship of xG and xGA to 'results'.

It's simple a matter than style and results are not related, and as such you can't use stats to accurately measure style.
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Absolutely agree - which takes us right back to what I said at the start. When you said that xG "isn't really a marker of attractive football", I just wanted to add that whilst that is true, that doesn't make it worthless as a measure of how 'effectively' a team is playing (or something akin to that as discussed extensively above). I wasn't disagreeing with your initial statement (apologies if it seemed I was), just adding to it in order to give a more balanced view of xG. (Anyone would think I was married to xG... 😂 ). :)
 
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Phomesy said:
My guy - I've been saying exactly this 🔝for 2 years now. 🤷‍♂️
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But before this season there were 3 other much better options available, PLUS Son Heung-Min.

People will individually accept that Richarlison is not a top 6 first-choice striker. They individually accept that Tel is no where near as good as Richarlison, and RKM is no where near as good as Dane Scarlett. In this scenario, its like the equivalent outcome of selling Solanke, Maddison, Son, and Kulusevski and replacing them with RKM and Xavi.

People still talk about the 2-from-8 under Ramos and selling Berbatov and Keane, but the net result here is worse. Ramos still had Pavlyuchenko and Bent.



Would anyone take RKM, Tel, or Richarlison over Bent or Pav?
How about RKM, Tel, and Richarlison vs Son, Solanke, and Kulusevski?

That's not an issue we had last season, which is the drum I've been banging.
 
Château NoHo said:

View: https://x.com/lukeaaronmoore/status/2009236492191965198?s=46
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I would like to think theres more to it than Vibes, my immediate instinct is to reject that

but

I think theres actually something to it

Vibes can be the difference between success and failure

If its all good vibes with Frank, he gets more time and patience

If its all good vibes things have a general positivity - an intangible - but really important

And since he came in Frank really has had chronically shit vibes
 
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