Tottenham brass sticking with Thomas Frank

Tottenham Hotspur fans aren’t very happy right now and with good reason. That feeling is mostly directed at first year Spurs manager Thomas Frank, who has underachieved this season and is coming off of a humiliating 3-0 away loss to Nottingham Forest, who entered the match just above the relegation zone in the table.

But if you thought that meant Spurs would be posting a photo of a stadium detail on social media and appointing an interim head coach, think again. According to an article in The Athletic yesterday by Jack Pitt-Brooke, while Tottenham officials have held discussions about Thomas Frank, they are at present making the decision to stay the course and give Frank the time and resources he needs to succeed in the position.

While there have been discussions at the club about Frank’s future, these have been regular meetings of the type that all clubs will have about their staffing and direction, rather than anything specifically reacting to events. And sources with knowledge of the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, indicated the clear position of the majority shareholding Lewis family is to stick with Frank and to give him the time that he needs.

—Jack Pitt-Brooke, The Athletic

Spurs have been in this position before, many many times. But until now it’s always been under the leadership of former chairman Daniel Levy, who was let go earlier this season by the Lewis family in an attempt to modernize Tottenham’s fooball operations. Spurs fans had a pretty good idea of what Daniel Levy would do in this situation — replace the coach — but we have no idea what this new group of executives and owners are thinking or what their predilections are. The Lewis family and CEO Vinai Venkatesham have made it clear in the past that they are shooting for long term, sustained success on the football pitch, but that the club needed to change to be a more modern footballing organization. This is the clearest indication yet that the Lewis Kids are taking the long view. It’s not a formal and public declaration of support (the dreaded “Vote of Confidence”) but it’s pretty significant.

You can understand the impulse. It doesn’t take much of a genius to see that there are bigger problems at Tottenham than simply who is leading the team in training and out onto the pitch. Spurs have an extremely flawed squad that’s still hurt by several long term key injuries, and there are major questions to both the construction of the squad over the past few summers and the overall organizational structure from the top down. If you subscribe to the theory that when the team plays bad the head coach gets sacked, then that’s evidence towards letting Frank go. But the “Magic Manager” theory isn’t a magic bullet, or else Spurs would have a lot more success over the last two decades than they have. There are big questions that need to be addressed, and not all of them can be fixed by replacing the manager. The efficacy of Co-Sporting Directors Johan Lange and Fabio Paratici are part of this equation as well, especially with a January transfer window upcoming, and it seems as though, for now, the new Spurs leadership is giving Frank the space to try and do what he can to turn things around.

That doesn’t mean that Frank is ultimately the right guy to lead Tottenham Hotspur. There are, as we have discussed ad nauseum on this blog, big, big questions about Frank’s tactics, personnel decisions, and team play and just because the board are backing him now doesn’t mean he’s going to be in charge this coming summer, or in March, or even in January. A lot can happen in football that can force a club’s hand, and Spurs have a tough challenge this weekend when Liverpool come to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

But if you were hoping for Spurs to rip the band-aid off quickly, that now appears unlikely to happen. Gird your loins, because unless things start clicking it could be a very long season.