THOMAS FRANK SHOULD RESIGN IF TOTTENHAM LOSE TO BRENTFORD, SAYS EX-SPURS STAR
Thomas Frank has friends coming over. They will come with warm hearts and fond memories but if they leave with even a point it will make for a most uncomfortable reunion.
Frank must beat Brentford if he is to ease the pressure of one win in the last eight games, one win in seven Premier League home games this season and criticism over the style of his football and in turn his suitability to manage Tottenham.
He had to play them at some stage, but it is fascinating that his worlds collide at this point.
The two London clubs from opposite ends of the ego spectrum, each with 19 points from 14 games, a tally reflecting more positively on Keith Andrews than the man he replaced even though Frank's Bees finished 18 points above Spurs last season.
Brentford were ravaged in the summer. Not only did they lose Frank but several of his coaching staff followed him and influential players including Christian Norgaard, Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa were sold.
Their seamless continuity under Andrews hints at a club so well run under the ownership of Matthew Benham that people are entitled to wonder how much the identity of the head coach really matters.
Some Spurs fans, meanwhile, are nagged by the fear Frank might turn a proud club with an illustrious history into plucky underdogs like Brentford, just when pretensions of life among the elite have been so recently reinvigorated by the Europa League success.
Ramon Vega, a former Tottenham and Switzerland defender who has emerged curiously as Frank's most vehement critic.
Vega, 54, insists he has no skin in the game. Although he played for Celtic, Vega does not know Ange Postecoglou but disagrees with the decision to sack him and replace him with Frank, whom he claims lacks the 'charisma' and 'personality' to manage such a big club.
'You need big balls to manage Tottenham,' Vega told Daily Mail Sport. 'Thomas Frank is a politician, a diplomat, a yes man but he is not the person to say, 'this is me, this is my way'.
'That shows in the dressing room. When you are changing the players and the system every five minutes, players feel insecure especially when the crowd is negative. This is not a stable base. And I'm not sure he has the respect of the players.
'Tottenham is complex, the recruitment has been a disaster for years and now we are paying for it. And then comes a guy from Brentford, and it looks like the stage is too big. If they lose at home to Brentford he should resign. That would show me he has balls.'
Frank freely admits does not know his best team. Some will see that as a fault, and the fact draws criticism.
And when he explains it away with the congested schedule and short turnaround between fixtures, it is a reminder that Spurs selected a coach without experience managing in European competition, just as they will often sign players with limited European experience despite being a club who consider European football central to their identity.
He says he will trust his principles to guide him through this sticky period as he did through testing early phases in charge of both Brondby and Brentford.
At Brentford, the key for Frank was to stumble upon the BMW strikeforce of Said Benrahma, Bryan Mbeumo and Ollie Watkins at the front of a 3-4-3 formation. 'Boom, that just clicked,' he said with a snap of his fingers.
At Spurs, where the scrutiny is more intense and the range of options broader, he has been tinkering away incessantly searching for the right relationships, while trying to protect his most used players from burn out.
Frank has used 23 different players across 22 games in all competitions. Eight have played more than 1,300 minutes. Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario has played 1,800 minutes. Right back Pedro Porro, who has appeared in all 22 Spurs games, has played 1,779 minutes. Micky van de Ven, rested in midweek at Newcastle, has played 1,700. Rodrigo Bentancur is next with 1,502 minutes.
All considerably more than Sepp van den Berg, the only Bees player with more than 1,300 minutes on the clock this season.
Spurs have relied upon a core 10. The only 10 to play more than 1,000 minutes for Frank have all played at least 1,200 minutes. And they lead us to the team he seemed to decide was his best team earlier in the season.
It has Vicario in goal, with Porro, Cristian Romero, Van de Ven and Djed Spence in the back four, Joao Palhinha, Bentancur and Pape Matar Sarr in midfield, and Mohamed Kudus and Richarlison up front.
Availability limited others. And nobody has made the position on the left wing their own since Son Heung-min was sold to Los Angeles in the summer. Various candidates have failed that audition.
Son is due to make his first return to N17 for the Brentford fixture, seemingly part of a strategy by the new Spurs regime to use their prestigious history to nourish brand identity. Former manager David Pleat has also been invited to sign his book in the club shop before the game.
For many fans though, the identity they crave more than anything is one on the pitch. And that team made of Frank's Core 10 was hardly true to the traditions of flair, elegance and fluency.
It relied upon Kudus for much of its creativity and opponents did not take long to figure out ways to repel its threat from open play or turnover possession on a high press, especially at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, where Spurs have won only three Premier League games in 2025.
These factors prompted Frank to start tinkering again in recent weeks, experimenting with two up front, reverting to a back-three for an awful 45 minutes at Arsenal, searching for ways to squeeze more from Randal Kolo Muani, Lucas Bergvall or Xavi Simons.
Time is precious but still important. When asked if Simons can be the creative heartbeat for Spurs that Mikkel Damsgaard is for Brentford, Frank noted how Damsgaard did not make an impression in the Premier League until his third season.
Frank is all about the culture of the club. He is fond of the slogan 'culture eats strategy for breakfast' and, when in charge at Brentford, he was keen to spread that word that the people were the 'secret sauce'.
Brentford's captain Collins, assessing the summer exodus, said: 'It didn't feel anything different when we came back in the summer, it felt the same. The transition was very easy. It's down to everyone in the building. The backroom staff, the people high up, and it goes through to the chefs, the cleaners.
'Good people pushing in the same direction and it really does help on the pitch. They make it so easy for everybody. It was seamless to come back in the summer with a whole new staff, and it felt like just another day. Culture wise, player wise, it's been very similar. It wasn't broken so no need to fix it.'
This is what Frank wants to scale up at Spurs. And he is capable. Whether it is possible at a big club, one expected to compete with the best in the world and satisfy an audience with an exciting brand cavalier football, that is an altogether different and more pertinent question. One to flummox many before him.
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