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Thomas Frank - Head Coach

I mean, it has to be rubbish?

Does it? Do you not think we were instructed last season to not take on long range shots? It was very noticeable to me, especially with Son

This is the way football is going - high percentage chances = good, low percentage = bad and it isn't something new this season.
 
After 16 games we are now 10th with 22 points, under a very bad manager last year with a weaker side and more injuries were 10th with 23 points. Getting rid of Ange was totally the right thing to do, but surely we all have to be asking ourselves is Frank the right man?
 
Does it? Do you not think we were instructed last season to not take on long range shots? It was very noticeable to me, especially with Son

This is the way football is going - high percentage chances = good, low percentage = bad and it isn't something new this season.
I agree it seems to be a way football is going. Perhaps data driven.

Personally I think a variety is good. Lack of that leads to predictability and even though a high percentage chance is in isolation better than a low percentage chance creating and actually shooting in lower percentage chances is a good thing overall - with moderation of course.

What the data doesn't quantify (so far, as far as I know) is what happens when those lower percentage chances aren't scored. Building pressure over time, corners and set pieces as well as defenders having to worry about more things, being put in tougher decisions where more mistakes will be made.

To me last season with Son it seemed more like he wasn't in those situations than him but taking opportunities to shoot. Similarly this season I'm not seeing a lot of chances to shoot from range not taken, but more that we're not often in those situations in the first place.
 
Do we really know if Frank has banned long range goal efforts? If so, I'd like to see a protest! Range for Tottenham, who's with me!
Everyone is forgetting we rarely shot from outside the box in either of the last 2 seasons as well. Seriously there's this collective amnesia about the football we've played previously and the qualities that these players exhibited.

The likelihood is that probably our players are generally poor at shots from distance (Porro excepted), so neither manager uses it as an attacking approach.
 
Everyone is forgetting we rarely shot from outside the box in either of the last 2 seasons as well. Seriously there's this collective amnesia about the football we've played previously and the qualities that these players exhibited.

The likelihood is that probably our players are generally poor at shots from distance (Porro excepted), so neither manager uses it as an attacking approach.
Xavi Simons has scored some great long range goals and Kudus can too. Considering our lack of passing and insisting on chucking it in the box, would have thought shooting from distance would have been tried more....
 
I'll just point out that it is, still, a personnel issue.

Playing Djed on the left because Udogie is injured for the majority of the time, limits us down that flank. It's a personnel issue because we lack a genuinely good left-footed player to swap in for Udogie there. You can see Frank's desperation here given he threw on the aged Ben Davies to try and change things - I have no doubt it's because he's at least left footed and this can offer some width down that flank.

Vicario playing out from the back does not work - it didn't work for Ange, won't work for Frank, but it's the basis of modern tactical approaches and so we are forced to rely on Vic for that regardless. And get regularly punished for it as it's clear his technique and (particularly) decision-making, are not up to the mark.

We play Xavi in the middle even when he's having one of his anonymous games because no one else can conduct play that far forward, with Maddison and Kulusevski out. And in the middle, no one can really conduct play from deep amidst the group of midfielders we have.

If VdV goes down again, we will see further tactical issues because we have no left-footed player to replace him, nor one as speedy as he is. Both of those will impact our buildup and height of our line.

So, ultimately, we're paying for some very, very poor squad management that took place over years - none of this is the work of one man, one window, but a club approach that has seen a haphazard squad assembled over nearly half a decade.

It will take a long time to fix, and until then we'll keep seeing inconsistency. And this will be the case regardless of the manager you appoint, because they all have systems they want to play, and all of them will mean being let down by certain parts of this Frankenstein squad assembled across multiple managers and eras.

Give Frank time, money and patience. Nothing else will work, imo. I say this as someone who wasn't too convinced by our choice of Frank to begin with - but having chosen him, you have to give him time.
This I don't know how to use the like button. No manager can just wave a wand and magically fix everything. As pointed out, the squad is assembled under 4 different managers, and has glaring holes and quite bloated. We need GOOD options on the left, both LCB, LB and LW and some players need to go. Frank needs to get time to sort it out. The only times we've been good over a significant period of time, is when we've had some stability with the manager, as under Poch and Harry.
The last thing we need is yet another manager having to start from scratch again!
 
This I don't know how to use the like button. No manager can just wave a wand and magically fix everything. As pointed out, the squad is assembled under 4 different managers, and has glaring holes and quite bloated. We need GOOD options on the left, both LCB, LB and LW and some players need to go. Frank needs to get time to sort it out. The only times we've been good over a significant period of time, is when we've had some stability with the manager, as under Poch and Harry.
The last thing we need is yet another manager having to start from scratch again!
I don't think any supporter expected Spurs to become world beaters over night, but I do think we wanted to the team to play to their ability, which we haven't. I am convinced that our squad is probably top six, however my guess is that we will finish bottom half. People can of that as they wish
 
After 16 games we are now 10th with 22 points, under a very bad manager last year with a weaker side and more injuries were 10th with 23 points. Getting rid of Ange was totally the right thing to do, but surely we all have to be asking ourselves is Frank the right man?

The last bloke was 18 months in. This one is just over 4 in and has yet to field any of the three players still at the club who accounted for most of our goals and assists last year.

Everyone is forgetting we rarely shot from outside the box in either of the last 2 seasons as well. Seriously there's this collective amnesia about the football we've played previously and the qualities that these players exhibited.

The likelihood is that probably our players are generally poor at shots from distance (Porro excepted), so neither manager uses it as an attacking approach.

Richarlison can barely find the net from 2 or 3 yards out, never mind trying to score from outside the box.

I don't think any supporter expected Spurs to become world beaters over night, but I do think we wanted to the team to play to their ability, which we haven't. I am convinced that our squad is probably top six, however my guess is that we will finish bottom half. People can of that as they wish

I had a long drive today and so listened to four Spurs podcasts - glutton for punishment! The common theme (they were The Tottenham Way, The Spurs Show, Last Word on Spurs and The Fighting rooster) is that we overrate our players. The journalist on The Tottenham Way obviously covers teams other than us and said - as an example - that he’d take Palace squad, and Forest’s creative and forward players, over ours.
 
Everyone is forgetting we rarely shot from outside the box in either of the last 2 seasons as well. Seriously there's this collective amnesia about the football we've played previously and the qualities that these players exhibited.

The likelihood is that probably our players are generally poor at shots from distance (Porro excepted), so neither manager uses it as an attacking approach.
There was similar "rumours" under conte, especially around son as I recall.
 
The last bloke was 18 months in. This one is just over 4 in and has yet to field any of the three players still at the club who accounted for most of our goals and assists last year.



Richarlison can barely find the net from 2 or 3 yards out, never mind trying to score from outside the box.



I had a long drive today and so listened to four Spurs podcasts - glutton for punishment! The common theme (they were The Tottenham Way, The Spurs Show, Last Word on Spurs and The Fighting rooster) is that we overrate our players. The journalist on The Tottenham Way obviously covers teams other than us and said - as an example - that he’d take Palace squad, and Forest’s creative and forward players, over ours.
Our squad is full of internationals and very expensive players, yet we look awful. We can buy a player for £60m and within a season their value halves. We change managers as regularly as I change underpants, but nothing changes. Why?
 
After 16 games we are now 10th with 22 points, under a very bad manager last year with a weaker side and more injuries were 10th with 23 points. Getting rid of Ange was totally the right thing to do, but surely we all have to be asking ourselves is Frank the right man?

By this point we’d lost our first choice centre backs (generally considered to be the only world class players in the squad) as well as our goal keeper. We would end up playing Fraser Forster for a lot of games and Brandon Austin for a couple. We were also in the midst of a run where we had to play the same players every single game, and then chuck newly recovered players straight out there without match fitness because we couldn’t do anything else. I don’t think he was a bad manager, I think he was dealing with exceptional circumstances and I’ll bang that drum until the cows come home.

On Frank, I understand the criticism that people can’t see a style of play developing and that makes it harder to buy in. But I think Frank’s ideal state won’t suddenly be playing swashbuckling football every game, it will be doing the ‘right things’ in every game state and playing smart, high percentage football at the right moments. Sometimes this will look more swashbuckling, sometimes it will look difficult to break down. I don’t even use percentage football in the derogatory sense, I mean it that I think our players are having to get used to these adjusted game plans, where as before they were used to trying to do one thing constantly.

All of that to say, I sympathise with Frank and I don’t think it should mean he should get less time for his ideas to come to fruition just because he isn’t trying to build one ‘system’ that we play every game.

My hope is that second half of the season, the players are more used to what Frank is asking, and also that we start to feel the benefit of his heavy rotation. He calls out that players aren’t as in sync when we don’t play well but the rotation is a trade off of that. I hope we reap the benefits in the second half of the year, where we have a fresher squad but also players more acclimated to his methods. That’s the bull case for the rest of this year.
 
Our squad is full of internationals and very expensive players, yet we look awful. We can buy a player for £60m and within a season their value halves. We change managers as regularly as I change underpants, but nothing changes. Why?

Because we have overpaid for players, which may have appeased the blood craze that is Spurs fans obsessions with fee, but its been a horrific squad build which is madness considering how big our recruitment arm is.

To the bolded, because there is no thought out plan that last longer than a season.
 
Because we have overpaid for players, which may have appeased the blood craze that is Spurs fans obsessions with fee, but its been a horrific squad build which is madness considering how big our recruitment arm is.

To the bolded, because there is no thought out plan that last longer than a season.

With stability, our recruitment could look a lot better. Our signings dropping into an established structure would help. At the moment, through injuries, new system and letting Kane and Son go, we don’t have many ‘corner stone’ players.

Frank should be able to build from our defensive line which is far more established. But midfield and attack need work! Which breaks down into 3 areas: signing better players, being patient while young players develop and getting some players back from injury.

Anyone hazard a guess what the collectives wages of Maddison, Kulu, Solanke and Bissouma are? 20m a year in wages or there abouts? Some of our most costly/best players.

Who would have thought changing manger and restructuring the team takes time and patience? Which is another reason we need to reset expectations and give frank until next summer at least.
 
Because we have overpaid for players, which may have appeased the blood craze that is Spurs fans obsessions with fee, but its been a horrific squad build which is madness considering how big our recruitment arm is.

To the bolded, because there is no thought out plan that last longer than a season.
I don't think we've overpaid/not got value for money on players more than any other club tbh. Sure Richi and Solanke haven't exactly been great business for the amounts paid. But then we've signed Romero and VDV for good money for example and they've increased in value.

We've invested a lot in youth: Bergvall/Gray/Odobert/Sarr/Sarr/Simons/Vuskovic and more all of whom are young 20s and nowhere near their peak. This was all about planning to the future, so I think it's a couple of seasons premature to say whether it's been horrific or not....
 
I don't think we've overpaid/not got value for money on players more than any other club tbh. Sure Richi and Solanke haven't exactly been great business for the amounts paid. But then we've signed Romero and VDV for good money for example and they've increased in value.

We've invested a lot in youth: Bergvall/Gray/Odobert/Sarr/Sarr/Simons/Vuskovic and more all of whom are young 20s and nowhere near their peak. This was all about planning to the future, so I think it's a couple of seasons premature to say whether it's been horrific or not....

No signing is a guaranteed home run, but we have not planned ahead for the inevitable days of our stars leaving, if you wanna be the best, you need to improve that record.

Our hit record though on our record signings is borderline horrific too and I don't think its been helped with the constant changes in directions.

I agree with the youth side and I like what we do there alot
 
No signing is a guaranteed home run, but we have not planned ahead for the inevitable days of our stars leaving, if you wanna be the best, you need to improve that record.

Our hit record though on our record signings is borderline horrific too and I don't think its been helped with the constant changes in directions.

I agree with the youth side and I like what we do there alot
Yeah I'm trying hard not to be overly critical of how we've replaced the Kane/Son departures as obviously it's so tough to replace them but for these guys the succession planning there wasn't great to say the least.

I think it's more about money tbh in terms of being the best (obvious I know). Emirates Marketing Project under Pep spent 200m plus on full backs a few years back and then when those full backs didn't work out they went and blew a shed load more on some new ones. I don't think our hit rate is bad in comparison to our peers, but until we have owners prepared to dig deep a la Emirates Marketing Project, Chelsea and the Goons we are going to have to continue to pursue the youth route and hope we hit a few home runs there (which I think we have already :))....
 
Our squad is full of internationals and very expensive players, yet we look awful. We can buy a player for £60m and within a season their value halves. We change managers as regularly as I change underpants, but nothing changes. Why?
£60m doesn't guarantee you anything other than that you have a player that cost you £60m. We need to evaluate better what we are actually buying and how they fit the squad as it is and how it might be going forward. Too often neither of these things have been done.

£60m isn't even a massive fee in today's football, it's roughly equivalent to the old 25m, which might get you a good player or it might not. It's not a seal of any kind of quality.
 
Yeah I'm trying hard not to be overly critical of how we've replaced the Kane/Son departures as obviously it's so tough to replace them but for these guys the succession planning there wasn't great to say the least.

I think it's more about money tbh in terms of being the best (obvious I know). Emirates Marketing Project under Pep spent 200m plus on full backs a few years back and then when those full backs didn't work out they went and blew a shed load more on some new ones. I don't think our hit rate is bad in comparison to our peers, but until we have owners prepared to dig deep a la Emirates Marketing Project, Chelsea and the Goons we are going to have to continue to pursue the youth route and hope we hit a few home runs there (which I think we have already :))....

No i agree and its extremely tough to replace them, but we have never been good at it. Waiting a year for Kanes replacement and it to be Solanke a year later, its not good, we knew he wouldn't be here forever and he wasn't an arseh0le so planning shouldn't have been an issue, also same with Son who we actively helped place at LA haha.
 
No i agree and its extremely tough to replace them, but we have never been good at it. Waiting a year for Kanes replacement and it to be Solanke a year later, its not good, we knew he wouldn't be here forever and he wasn't an arseh0le so planning shouldn't have been an issue, also same with Son who we actively helped place at LA haha.
Richy was the replacement, we just bought Solanke because Richy very obviously wasn't the answer.
 
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