With full respect to Bournemouth, losing to their 94th minute winner would not in normal circumstances been seen as a significant moment in the recent history of any Premier League club, let alone Tottenham. But Tottenham are no normal club. Normally, teams strive to win a trophy, celebrate the win then use it as a platform to build upon. Not Tottenham. We’ve chucked it all away.
Delirium in Bilbao and at the Lane for those of us watching on the screens. 250000 in the streets on a working day. At last, a trophy. At last, supporters and players can celebrate in unity. It seems like a fantasy now, a fever dream hallucination. Two points from three games against teams who were not at their best but have in common the harmony of purpose and intensity that is so obviously absent from our football. Ahead in two of these, we cave. Our first goal in open play since December 6th. The sale of our top goalscorer with, so far, no replacement.
The football is dull and unadventurous. It’s not even safe, the late goal being the perfect example. It typified Spurs defensive deficiencies this season. Deep into injury time, we are wide open rather than closing ranks, leaving their most dangerous player time and space at the edge of the area. No last ditch tackles, no flying blocking bodies, but shoulder shrugging spectating.
More than this, it’s inept. We cannot consistently pass the ball to a teammate. Players are spread far and wide on the field with little connection to each other. We are persistently caught in possession. We’re easy. We’re mugs.
It’s accurate to say that Frank and perhaps those who appointed him do not grasp the heritage of a team that wants to play exciting football and that this is what supporters want to see. However, attacking front foot football is not merely about aesthetics, it’s about winning. Teams who succeed do not sit back.
In other circumstances I might write in philosophical whimsy about how remarkable it is that Spurs could waste supporters’ goodwill, stretched already to near breaking point by high ticket prices and the club’s treatment of fans as customers and consumers. But I’m not in that frame of mind. Our football is terrible. It’s tactically negligent, gutless and soporific. To reach this point is an indictment of the club’s strategy and neglect.
The Lewis family declare their intentions to make Spurs a major force through strategic investment and better off the field organisation, but already the reserves of their most precious resource, time, have been severely depleted. Everybody at the club is under pressure now. You can’t build on foundations of quicksand. Years of change and transition undermine the efforts of the new manager and the revamped recruitment and medical teams to develop the squad.
I tend to be cautious and patient in making my judgements, in life as well as in football. I thought Frank would bring much-needed qualities to the club. He is a manager with a solid reputation, a thinker, a good motivator and organiser, and a shrewd tactician who can get the most from his players.
We’ve not seen any of this. In a league where other sides, Bournemouth again being a good example, with fewer resources than us compensate and prosper through organisation and identity, we have few discernible effective patterns of play, especially to turn defence into attack. These issues could perhaps have been mitigated by the comfort and security of a set pattern of play, a familiar formation where teammates knew what was expected of them and others and where young players could grow and flourish. Instead we have flux and change. Managers come and go, unsuitable in their individual, special ways but all with different philosophies and approaches to team building, often diametrically opposed to that of their predecessor.
Our current coach alters the set-up every game. Ostensibly this is in response to our opponents’ assumed tactics. Frank treats this squad as he did his Brentford team, the difference being that whereas in west London he had many years to build a squad and inculcate this approach, at Spurs there is no such foundation upon which to base these changes. It has the effect of creating uncertainty within our own players, and masks the truth that he does not know his best team.
The club thought he was ready to step up. In reality, he seems out of his depth. Managing Spurs is different: expectations are higher, as is the pressure, and he does not have the long history of support from within that he benefitted from at Brentford. When highly rated coach Matt Wells left the club recently, his stated aim as boss of his new club was to play football on the front foot. Looking at Frank’s Spurs, no wonder he saw his future elsewhere. (Remember we’ve also lost a strong link to our heritage as the grandson of Cliff Jones).
Like Ange before him, when stressed Frank returns to his past record of achievement. I understand why he feels the need for self-justification, but it sounds hollow when his current side are chronically underachieving.
Not one player has improved their game under Frank. On the contrary, the deficiencies of team play have revealed the lack of quality in the squad. Granted, injuries have not helped, particularly to my mind to Solanke, a good rather than great centre forward who can be both target and finisher and above all can provide a focus for attacking play, someone to build play around. Players like Bergvall, Tel and Odobert have promising futures ahead of them but this is now, and time is running out.
It is legitimate to question the judgement of our vaunted recruitment team to allow us to be in this situation. Paratici and Lange are supposed to be working in unison, but already the former supposedly wants to go back to Italy. However, underlying these issues is a long-term structural weakness where the chronically dysfunctional relationship between football (i.e. the coach), recruitment and budget (the board) undermines any pretensions to achievement.
I’ve written repeatedly about this, that in any club these three elements have to align, and since ENIC took over, they have failed to consistently fulfil their duty to do so with diligence and insight. They were never clear about these goals or if they were, how to achieve them. At Spurs we have an embedded culture where people running a football club don’t understand football.
The question is, recruitment for what? To be contenders, the finance for salaries and transfers has to be made available. Players come and go according to the whims of these coaches and whatever the job title is this week of those in charge of recruitment, ever changing but never evolving. Modern football at a high level requires investment and resources, yet after a generation’s work to make us one of the most wealthy and self-sufficient clubs in the world, we remain stubbornly oblivious to the necessity of spending a substantial portion of that money in order to remain competitive.
This is not just about recruitment – it is also about retention. If our policy is to buy and develop young talent without also strengthening the team ready to be contenders in four competitions in the here and now, then the likely outcome is not success, it is that we become a nursery for Europe’s top sides as the likes of Bergvall, Gray and Vuscovic move on.
Where does this leave Spurs? In a dire mess. Players having a go at the fans. Players having a go at the board. Fans having a go at players, although at home games the crowd has been reasonably tolerant given the extent of the problems. This may change on Saturday where we will field a weakened side against a rampant Villa who have an allocation of 9k, that’s a lot of away fan noise.
Having vehemently criticised the club’s leadership for their lack of long-term strategy, it’s hardly logical to suggest they should sack Frank now unless they have a suitably able replacement available, which is seldom the case mid-season. There are no suitable candidates within the club as Frank brought his own men with him. I fear things could turn ugly if we lose to Wham, which is perfectly possible given our form and their motivation to beat us. Frank now also has to contend with a series of injuries. I suspect it may turn on the desire of the Lewis family to make statement decisions, a message that they are in charge, rather than on league form.
In this window we need to sign players with proven experience at this level, ideally from the PL, who can pass the ball forwards and strengthen the side from the start of their Spurs career, especially in central midfield. Good luck to the 19 year old fullback coming from Santos, but he’s not what I have in mind.
Whether the Lewis family, supported by our supposedly able and fan-friendly CEO, can change this toxic culture remains to be seen. The reconstituted board is packed with experience in finance and in sports finance, but running an English football club, to echo a previous comment, is different. Vinai Venkatesham has to make the forces align – that’s the role of an effective CEO. Certainly there is no quick fix. This will take time, but if our league form remains so poor, short-term decisions will have to be made, potentially undermining the longer term strategy.
And so we go, round and round again. Something has to break the cycle. Whether the Lewis family want to make it work is a question only they can answer, because as we all know, the I in ENIC stands for investment, and they must be tempted to walk away from these problems and towards a mountain of cash.
To alleviate the gloom and doom of this piece, two friends of the blog have shared their warm memories about Spurs. Take a look.
More Trauma Than Triumph is Harvey Burgess’s story of his life as a Spurs fan
Norman Giller is a veteran of Fleet Street and lifelong Spurs fan who knows the club and the players. His latest Spurs Select evokes warm memories available with all his many other books here
TOTTENHAM ON MY MIND 
sensational writing as ever. We must sack Frank, before we compel players like Micky VdV to look elsewhere.
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Wow, we’ve been so successful hiring and firing manager in quick succession in recent years, so let’s do it again. There’s a saying that repeating the same actions and expecting different results is the first sign of madness.
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i think that boat has sailed for both Romero and VDV.
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Feels like the mid 90’s again everything we built on seems laid to the wayside. ENIC kids mentioned about investing and the team challenging for champions league. Yet their first transfer window they are looking at a teenager from Brazil that won’t be ready for at least 2 seasons, I have been supporting this club since I was 7 and it just feels like we have gone backwards. Frank isn’t the answer, I don’t even think he understands the motto of the club. I feel like we have unfinished business with Pochettino but I don’t want him to be the manager if we will do what we have done with every manager since and not back him. At this moment I’m in the Frank Out and Johan Lange out (I honestly can’t see what good he has done since he has been here).
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Great article & perfectly highlighting the lack of team set up we do just stand around so disappointed in how Thomas Frank sets up the team. Have you noticed how on the touchline the coaches obsess over tactics. They just need to take a look same week in week out …
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Let’s try and go through this. Like most football commentary the mantra seems to “keep it vague” .
Let’s start with finance “Modern football at a high level requires investment and resources, yet after a generation’s work to make us one of the most wealthy and self-sufficient clubs in the world, we remain stubbornly oblivious to the necessity of spending a substantial portion of that money in order to remain competitive.” No explanation of what our financial situation actually is of course. We have a new stadium, we have a debt we will be paying off for the next 30 years and we have an increased income. So what exactly do we have to spend and what is “a substantial portion” ? Ironically you complain about high ticket prices so presumably want to reduce our income.
“Managers come and go, unsuitable in their individual, special ways but all with different philosophies and approaches to team building, often diametrically opposed to that of their predecessor.” Two points here. Firstly its not always true. Brighton in particular have always tried to appoint managers with a similar philosophy to minimise disruption. Secondly George Graham’s Arsenal was different to Wengers, Arteta’s is different to both. It doesn’t seem to have caused them too many problems, maybe because they were all given time.
“Granted, injuries have not helped”. Something of an understatement ? Injuries have been a killer. Not only have we lost key players, we’ve lost them for a long time. Kulusevski was our best player last season, this season he hasn’t played at all. Losing Madison and Solanke have also been hugely damaging. Losing someone for a couple of games is manageable. Losing a key player for a season really isn’t. Injuries have become a major issue in professional sport generally. The fact the tennis authorities are being taken to court on the grounds they are endangering player’s health tells you that. I would suggest the reason Arsenal are looking so strong this season is simply that after 6 years Arteta has built the squad to a level where it can survive the loss of any player.
“as we all know, the I in ENIC stands for investment, and they must be tempted to walk away from these problems and towards a mountain of cash.”. So no facts just innuendo, someone spouting their personal opinions. If you actually know something then say so. If not your opinion is worthless.
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Brilliant and thoughtful piece, laying bare the problems. Will spurs becone a nursery club like chelsea gave become? I’m sick of players (academy or not) leaving and becoming the next level. Selling Johnson! For him, I hope he takes CP to the Conference Final.
Finally constantly bringing players on for 10-20 mins is NOT rotation. How can they get upto speed?
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so what be the point sacking Frank? Hea may be struggling right now and may not last another season but what manager can come in right now and heal our injured players and magically produce players from the bench.?? Most, not all, teams second successful, or at least competitive due to longer terms with manager, hiring and firing every 18 months without improvement does not make sense, at some point it has to fall on the players, the board and recruitment.
We have had great managers who won everywhere they went but struggled with us, that says something about us not them. We complain we need a painful rebuild, but when we hire someone to do if we complain we not performing do our high standards.
im not saying Frank is the answer, but he definitely is not the only problem, he can only work with the tools he given. Reports say we have money to spend, over 100m plus whatever else in sales yet Lange has had a window and 4 months to replace and identify our left wing to replace Son, but nothing seems close yet, we knew we needed a number 10 since Madison injury but nothing seems there either. We know Xavi and RKM were panic buys/loan due to the Eze farce.Lange seems more happy with his data than actual ability.
AP was told get CL footy, win a trophy, he succeeded. I was first to get angry about our PL form but if he said “we can’t get top 4 with this squad and injuries so let’s go for Europa league” to the fans back in March we would all understand. But why not back him, he could do with more DFM, (Palihna) and more attack power and give him at least four other players maybe our season be different. But that was not good enough. Levy is gone, can’t blame him, for some reason we are trying to get a left back who again not for now, def not priority unless I’m unaware of something, but Santos wanted 17.5m, we offer 8m, less than half, they obvs refuse, so maybe it’s not Levy, maybe it’s just how our club is run from the money men.
if anyone can tell me who can, or would want to replace Frank known you have 18months to get it right or else gone, please tell me, also what player would want to move here with our toxic fanbase and midtable mediocrity. We don’t need marquee signings, we need players who are hungry and want to succeed. My anger is at us not being brave and buying a whole team for competition amongst players (obviously over could windows) other teams do but us, our hierarchy are happy counting the profit and loving the brand, but the lower our league each season the less our club is worth. Maybe in 2 years we may be worth less so they have to sell before we become worthless….
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A couple of postings ago I predicted that Frank will cling on his job to the end of the season and we begin the merry dance of new manager hunting all over again. But I didn’t expect things to deteriorate so quickly over the past two months. There’s something hinky and disjointed about the whole set up both on and off the pitch. The rash of unforced errors has returned and the players just look fed up with it all. This is a dangerous state of mind to be in, flirting with the relegation zone and three months of the season still to run.
I will throw more fuel onto the fire by suggesting the physio department is not doing its job. Players are going down like flies and joining the other long term players out with injuries. How did the Solanke situation be allowed to happen? Back in August we were told to expect most of the injured would be back in action by December and we are no nearer to getting anyone back. Is no one answerable to this mess? Maybe Romero was right by suggesting things are no good. Remember that he ended up managing his own recovery when the physios were delaying his recovery.
As for team selection, tactics and recruitment – another mess. The midfield is described as the engine room of the team for good reason. It sets the tempo and desire to win but we are sending out youngsters still learning their trade against teams with world class midfielders. We need adults in midfield to protect the defence and drive the team upfield to support the attack. At the moment we are just reacting to the other teams. There’s no sense of a game plan or a style of play that we can see developing.
What’s happened to Bissouma? After his injury and Africa Cup absences can we expect him to return and beef up the midfield? Unlikely – and we are left to suffer underperforming cameos from average talents such as Tel, Odobert and Simons – all of them recent acquisitions by a recruitment policy driven by panic buying. I’ve been criticised for describing them as average but, believe me, not one of our recent purchases send a shiver of apprehension down the backs of opposing defenders.
Don’t get me started on the lack of goal threat – we still haven’t replaced our two greatest goalscorers. Shakespeare had a phrase for it: The Son, for shame, will not show its face today. Audere Est Facere? Don’t make me larf, more like, ‘Alius Denique Pulmentum’.
Eaststander.
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The medical situation may be a bit more complicated than them just not being very good at their job. According to stuff I’ve read there was a lot of tension at Chelsea between Maresca and the medical staff. He felt they were infringing on his right to play who he wanted, they felt he was putting players at risk. There were similar stories last season about Postecoglou. We don’t know what the situation is with Frank. Are the medical staff not doing their job or are they being ignored ?
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As the Bard wrote, “Now is the winter of our discontent…” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5JF9Gq5tL4
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Ah yes, blame. The question we’re all debating remains unanswered: is this a continuity issue with a team that finished 17th(!) overseen by the worst manager in our history, or is it down to Frank’s inability to transform it in the space of six months?
To style Frank as out of his depth with a weak apple and pears argument – yes he did it at Brentford but we’re the mighty Tottenham and he’s crap because he doesn’t understand our expectations – is odd. Frank got the job precisely because he has a pedigree working with average players and doing well with them in the Premiership. The football’s been disjointed and poor. The absence of Solanke, Kulu and Madds has hamstrung our entire attacking capability. Xavi, our marquee signing, has not hit the ground running and Kudus is the only other senior player with an attacking capability.
Let’s put our young players with potential to one side. What’s left in terms of experienced Premiership footballers? It’s underwhelming. The current squad contains nobody playing at a worldclass level. To me Micky is the only player on the way to coming close and that’s why he’ll be bought by a bigger club in the near future. We lost two indisputably worldclass players in Kane and Sonny whose brilliance papered over the cracks. I’d also suggest that Lloris was an elite level keeper who, until his late period demise, kept us competitive. We’ve been spoilt and become delusional about what we can achieve with what we’ve currently got. This is not a top four squad. Given how other teams have pushed on, it may not be a top six squad.
We all want to find fault. To find someone to blame. But there isn’t a someone. There is a system. Our recruitment of established players has been poor. Do the following represent return on investment in footballing or financial terms: Ndombele, Sanchez, Richi, Johnson, Solanke? (I know, harsh on Solanke but he’s longterm crocked and we overpaid). We’re all praying that Xavi will find his feet. The Lewis kids’ propaganda that Levy was the issue and that under them (although Spurs has been under the Lewis family the entire time with ENIC) it’ll be all change is bollocks. What we’ve seen is same, same. Hence our frustration. So how to end the cycle? Simple. New owners, with a new ethos, deep pockets and patience. The last of which we’ve all understandably run out of. If ENIC sells up it’s impossible to know how this would affect Tottenham but, at this point, I’d take systemic change even with all the risk that might entail.
But back to reality; we want Frank to show that he’s having a positive impact on how we play. Without a striker for the majority of that time. With his best players arguably being his most inexperienced players. With his three key senior attacking players, out. The pushback is that we’re not defensively sound, either. I think that’s a work in progress and personally, I’ve not been happy with Romero or Vic all season. Apparently they’re leaders, rather than senior players who far too often can be a liability. It goes without saying that a team that can transition, hold the ball, and actually attack with lethality puts less pressure on a defence. We need Kulu and Solanke.
I’m reserving all judgement on Frank until the end of the season, and particularly until Kulu and Solanke are back and humming. There will be buys in January. Hopefully it won’t just be kids. Fingers crossed at least one of them fills a position that we desperately need to click.
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A lot I’d agree with but one major concern. To me there are a lot of very dodgy owners out there. The current owners selling may be very bad news for Spurs not very good news. The reality is City and Newcastle have owners who could buy out the entire premier league from the petty cash if the rules allowed them to. The rest seem to be mostly Yanks who see a profit in the premier league. I don’t see a potential owner who will take the club forward out there.
Kudus is out for some time, however Solanke actually got on the pitch against Villa. However given Richarlison went off injured I’m not sure that gets us any further forward.
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