How Did It All Go So Badly Wrong for Thomas Frank? And Who Can Reignite Spurs?

When Thomas Frank walked into the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as head coach last June, he was walking into what he believed was the opportunity of a lifetime. After nearly seven years at Brentford, a spell that saw promotion to the Premier League, two top-half finishes and a level of job security matched only by Pep Guardiola, Frank was ready to prove himself at the top table. Eight months later, he was sacked, having collected just 29 points from 26 league games, with Spurs 16th in the table and staring down the barrel of a relegation fight.

For football coaches watching from the outside, Frank's downfall is more than a cautionary tale. It is a case study in the gap between managing a well-run underdog and leading a club with the size, expectation and emotional weight of Tottenham Hotspur. It raises questions about tactical identity, man-management at scale, communication under pressure and the age-old debate about whether coaches can truly change their style when they step up.

Here is how it all unravelled and who might be next through the door.

The Inheritance: A Uniquely Mixed Hand

To understand Frank's failure, you have to understand what he inherited. Last season, Tottenham managed something unprecedented: they won the Europa League, the club's first major trophy since 2008 while simultaneously finishing 17th in the Premier League, their worst domestic campaign in nearly half a century.

Ange Postecoglou's sacking was painful but logical. Daniel Levy wanted to rebuild Spurs as a consistent force across all competitions, not a team capable of European glory one night and abject domestic surrender the next. Frank was brought in to provide what Postecoglou could not: balance, robustness and sustainability.

But the squad he inherited was deeply problematic. Son Heung-min had departed for LAFC. Harry Kane had already been gone for two years without a true replacement. Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison, Spurs' two best creative midfielders were sidelined with long-term knee injuries and would not play a single competitive minute under Frank. Dominic Solanke, the club-record signing, was restricted to just seven league appearances before returning in late January due to a persistent ankle issue.

Frank wanted proven quality: a new wide player to replace Son's goals, a No. 6 to shore up the midfield and, critically, a No. 10 to fill the enormous creative void. Spurs moved quickly for Mohammed Kudus and Joao Palhinha, both of whom featured in the UEFA Super Cup opener. But the pursuit of a top-quality No. 10 became a saga. Targets Morgan Gibbs-White and Eberechi Eze both slipped through the net, Gibbs-White performed a late U-turn to stay at Nottingham Forest, while Spurs mishandled negotiations with Crystal Palace over Eze, who ultimately returned to boyhood club Arsenal when Kai Havertz was injured.

Xavi Simons arrived from RB Leipzig for £52 million, but he was always going to need time to adapt to the Premier League. Randal Kolo Muani added further reinforcement, yet the summer window ended as they always seemed to at Tottenham: with fans furiously debating whether the squad was genuinely stronger or weaker than before.

And then, before Frank had even settled into the rhythm of the season, the ground shifted beneath his feet entirely.

Structural Upheaval: The Post-Levy Era

On 4 September 2025, Daniel Levy, the man who had run Tottenham with near-total control for almost 25 years was sacked. It was a genuinely shocking moment, marking a radical change in how the club was run. Critically, Levy was the man who had led the process to appoint Frank and signed the players he would work with. His sudden departure left Frank operating in a rapidly changing institutional environment, having lost his primary boardroom ally.

Fabio Paratici returned as co-sporting director alongside Johan Lange in October, but by January, Paratici had already left for Fiorentina. CEO Vinai Venkatesham spoke openly about the challenges ahead, but the constant churn at senior level created instability that filtered down to the football operation. Frank was attempting to build something coherent on the pitch while the organisational structure around him was being rebuilt in real time.

For coaches, this is a critical lesson. No matter how clear your tactical vision or how thorough your preparation, your ability to succeed is inseparable from the stability and alignment of the structures above you. Frank was effectively coaching in an institutional vacuum for much of his tenure.

The Tactical Problem: Brentford Football at a Big Club

This is where it gets most instructive for coaches.

Frank's tactical blueprint at Brentford was highly effective for its context: compact defensive shape, disciplined pressing triggers, efficient set-piece routines and a willingness to play direct, transition-based football. It got Brentford promoted and kept them comfortably in the Premier League for four seasons. The question was always whether that blueprint could scale.

The early signs were encouraging. Frank's first competitive match, the UEFA Super Cup against Paris Saint-Germain in Udine saw him deploy a bespoke 3-5-2 with Palhinha and Kudus excelling. Spurs went 2-0 up before fading and losing on penalties. A missed opportunity, but a clear statement of tactical intent: this was a coach who could organise a side, set effective pressing traps and exploit set pieces against elite opposition.

The Premier League opener, a 3-0 home win over Burnley, reinforced the optimism. Then came the masterpiece: a 2-0 away win at the Etihad against Manchester City, built on immaculate organisation, structured pressing and ruthless counter-attacking. It was Frank at his absolute best.

Looking back, the start of Frank's tenure was also its peak.

The Home Problem

From the third league game onwards, a 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth that flattered Spurs with an xG of just 0.19, the cracks were impossible to ignore. At home, Spurs were painfully limited in possession. They struggled to progress the ball through the middle of the pitch, with play overwhelmingly channelled down the flanks. Opponents quickly worked this out. Teams coming to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium marvelled at how predictable Spurs were, how poor they were on the ball and how easy they were to contain.

When Wolves, bottom of the table visited in September, Spurs needed a last-gasp Palhinha equaliser to scrape a point. Against Chelsea, one of the biggest fixtures in Spurs' calendar, they finished with an xG of 0.1, the lowest by any team in the league that season until Spurs themselves managed even worse in a 4-1 humiliation at Arsenal. Against Fulham, they were 2-0 down inside six minutes. Against West Ham and Newcastle, in the final weeks, the stadium finally turned on the head coach with unified hostility.

Frank won just two of 13 home league matches. For a club that spent £1.2 billion on its stadium, this was simply untenable.

The Away Blueprint And Its Limitations

Away from home, there was method. Frank's Spurs took 19 of their 29 points on the road, largely following the Manchester City blueprint: defensive solidity, set-piece efficiency, swift transitions. It worked at West Ham, Leeds, Everton and Crystal Palace.

But even these performances pointed to a fundamental issue. Frank was coaching Spurs to play reactive football, the football of a team trying to survive rather than dominate. When Spurs went to Arsenal in November, Frank's negative 5-4-1 set-up, described by observers as resembling a League One side trying to earn an FA Cup replay, confirmed the fears that had been growing since August. This was not football befitting a club of Tottenham's aspirations.

One source close to a senior first-team player described Frank as ultimately a coach for a "smaller team," focused on compact defensive shape, long balls and counter-attacks. The player in question felt he was only able to perform at "10 per cent" of his potential because of Frank's restrictive approach.

The Bigger Pattern

Frank's tenure feeds into a broader pattern that coaches at every level should pay attention to. Managers who have built their reputations on pragmatic, low-possession football at smaller clubs almost universally struggle when they step up to a team with greater resources, talent and expectations.

The data supports this. Looking at managers who moved from Premier League sides to traditional "big six" clubs, there is a rough but discernible correlation between the possession share they averaged at their previous club and how long they lasted at their new one. Mauricio Pochettino, who had Southampton playing the most aggressive pressing football in the league, went on to turn Spurs into Champions League finalists. Brendan Rodgers took possession-focused Liverpool within touching distance of a title. On the other end, managers accustomed to low possession figures, Nuno Espirito Santo, Roy Hodgson at Liverpool, David Moyes at Manchester United did not last long.

Frank's Tottenham averaged some of the lowest possession figures of any big-six side in recent years. He was, as many observers noted, essentially playing Brentford football with Tottenham players.

It is a simple fact of football that managing bigger teams is fundamentally different. There are higher expectations around style and identity. There is more talent in the squad that needs to be expressed, not contained. The crowd at a 62,000-seat stadium expects proactive, front-foot football especially at home. Frank was never able to provide it, and no amount of set-piece excellence could compensate for the creative void in open play.

Man-Management and the Culture Gap

Beyond tactics, Frank's struggles extended into the human side of management an area where he had been universally praised at Brentford.

At Brentford, Frank was beloved. He had an exceptional relationship with owner Matthew Benham, his staff and his players. The environment was intimate, aligned and trusting. But at Spurs, he was operating at a different scale entirely. A larger, more fragmented squad. Higher-profile personalities. A fanbase numbering in the millions rather than the thousands. A media spotlight exponentially more intense.

There was a perception among players and staff that Frank was perhaps too nice, lacking the ego, charisma or force of personality needed to command a dressing room of international stars. One long-standing training ground source noted that players would run through walls for Postecoglou, whatever his faults, as proven by the Europa League triumph. They never had the same respect for Frank and knew they did not have to work as hard for him. Training intensity dropped. Standards slipped.

The examples were telling. After the painful Arsenal defeat, Frank lectured his players about standards. The next day, multiple players, including captain Cristian Romero, still turned up late. After the Chelsea loss, Micky van de Ven and Djed Spence walked straight past Frank, ignoring his requests that they acknowledge the crowd. It was a visible, public illustration of a coach who had lost the room.

Romero's captaincy itself became a point of tension. He was the only viable option to replace Son as skipper, but his behaviour on and off the pitch did not always match the standard expected. Frank backed him publicly, even after Romero criticised the club's hierarchy and then received a four-match ban for a reckless challenge on Casemiro. Privately, Frank held serious reservations about the defender's leadership qualities.

This leadership vacuum extended across the squad. Sources repeatedly pointed to a lack of direction on the training ground. After defeats, the players would spiral into negativity with nobody able to lift or refocus them. It was this gap that led to the January signing of Conor Gallagher and the pursuit of Andy Robertson, desperate attempts to plug a character deficit that Frank himself could not fill.

The Communication Failure

If there was one area where Frank's unsuitability for a job of this magnitude was most visible, it was in his public communication.

At Brentford, Frank was regarded as one of the most intelligent, articulate voices in the Premier League. His press conferences were thoughtful, measured and often insightful. But the brighter spotlight that comes with managing Spurs demanded something different and Frank consistently got the tone wrong.

It started at his very first press conference. Where Postecoglou had boldly declared that his teams always won trophies in their second season, a prophecy that became iconic when he delivered the Europa League, Frank promised something far less inspiring: that Spurs would "lose football matches." Technically true, of course. But for a fanbase riding the high of a first major trophy in 17 years, it felt defeatist.

The pattern continued throughout the season. Frank repeatedly referenced issues beyond his control, the injuries to Kulusevski and Maddison, the quality of opponents like Arsenal in a way that came across as excuse-making rather than accountability. After the Fulham defeat, when fans jeered goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario for a costly error, Frank described them as not "true fans", a comment that permanently damaged his relationship with the crowd. After the West Ham loss in January, his description of Spurs as a "super-tanker turning in the right direction" was met with derision.

Perhaps the most emblematic moment came when Frank was photographed drinking from an Arsenal-branded coffee cup. A tiny, insignificant detail in isolation but it crystallised everything fans had come to resent about a manager who seemed oblivious to the emotional weight of the job.

Reports also emerged of a bizarre obsession with praising Arsenal to his own players. One source described Frank as "constantly going on about Arsenal," telling his squad how good the Gunners were even before and after the North London derby. Players quickly grew tired of it. At a club where Arsenal represent the most bitter of rivalries, this kind of tone-deafness was fatal.

Contrast all of this with Pochettino still the benchmark for Spurs fans, who even from his position as USMNT head coach was saying all the right things. On the High Performance podcast this week, Pochettino declared that Tottenham "should be trying to win the Premier League and the Champions League." It was exactly the kind of ambition and belief that Frank could never articulate.

The Final Days

By the end, Frank's position was untenable. The atmosphere at home matches had become toxic. Reported attendance for his final game the 2-1 defeat to Newcastle was around 59,773, some 3,000 below capacity, though those inside the ground suggested the real figure was even lower. During that match, fans chanted "sacked in the morning" and sang Pochettino's name. The message could not have been clearer.

Frank's final press conference was defiant. He said he was "convinced" he would be in charge for the next game against Arsenal and was "1,000 per cent sure" he was the right man. Senior figures at the club disagreed. CEO Venkatesham made his recommendation to the board, and the end came swiftly the following morning.

Frank leaves as the most unpopular Spurs head coach in modern times, a remarkable fall for a man who had been so universally respected in the game just months earlier.

So Who Can Reignite Spurs?

Tottenham now face a pivotal appointment. This is the first major managerial decision of the post-Levy era, and it comes at a time when the club's immediate priority, survival in the Premier League conflicts with its longer-term ambitions. The question facing the Spurs hierarchy is whether to appoint an interim to steady the ship until summer, or move decisively for a permanent appointment now.

Here are the leading candidates and what each would bring from a coaching perspective.

Roberto De Zerbi - The Bookmakers' Favourite

Current status: Available, having resigned from Marseille on the same day Frank was sacked.

De Zerbi is the name at the top of most shortlists, and for good reason. The Italian built his reputation at Brighton, where he transformed a mid-table side into one of the most tactically progressive teams in the Premier League. His commitment to positional play, building from the back and creating overloads in the final third is exactly the kind of identity Spurs fans have been crying out for.

His spell at Marseille was turbulent, ending with a 5-0 defeat to PSG but his reputation among coaches remains sky-high. He is widely regarded as one of the most innovative tacticians in European football.

The coaching case for De Zerbi: He would bring immediate tactical clarity and an identity rooted in possession with purpose. His track record of developing young players something essential given Spurs' youthful squad is excellent. He is also available immediately, meaning no need for an interim arrangement.

The concerns: De Zerbi's fiery temperament has caused friction at every club he has managed. Reports suggest he turned down the Spurs job last summer, and his relationship with boardrooms can be combustible. Whether Tottenham's ownership structure could handle his intensity is a genuine question.

Mauricio Pochettino — The Emotional Favourite

Current status: Managing the United States men's national team, contracted through the 2026 World Cup this summer.

No candidate generates more excitement among Spurs supporters. Pochettino's five-year tenure (2014–2019) remains the high-water mark of modern Tottenham consecutive top-three finishes, a Champions League final and a transformation of the club's identity from also-rans to genuine contenders.

Pochettino has spoken consistently of his love for Spurs. On the High Performance podcast this week, he talked about the club's potential in a way that perfectly captured what the fanbase wants to hear: ambition, belief and a refusal to accept mediocrity.

The coaching case for Pochettino: He knows the club, knows the Premier League and has a proven track record of building a high-pressing, attack-minded team. He excels at developing young talent and creating a squad culture of intensity and accountability — precisely what Spurs lack right now.

The concerns: Pochettino will not be available until after the World Cup, meaning Spurs would need an interim for at least four months. There are also legitimate questions about whether the magic can be recaptured. The squad has changed dramatically since 2019, and Pochettino's subsequent stints at PSG and Chelsea were mixed at best.

Andoni Iraola - The Progressive Underdog

Current status: Managing Bournemouth, out of contract this summer.

Tottenham have long admired Iraola, and he was identified as a potential successor to Postecoglou before the club opted for Frank instead. At Bournemouth, Iraola has implemented one of the most intense pressing systems in the Premier League, breaking the club's points record in consecutive seasons.

The coaching case for Iraola: His tactical profile aligns more closely with what Spurs need than Frank's ever did. He plays high-pressing, front-foot football and has proven himself capable of overachieving with limited resources. His contract situation would also make negotiations more straightforward than some alternatives.

The concerns: This is the Frank question all over again. Can an underdog manager truly scale up to a big club? Iraola's Bournemouth have averaged the fourth-lowest possession share in the league — a statistic that should give Spurs pause given what just happened.

Xabi Alonso - The Dream Appointment

Current status: Managing Real Madrid.

Alonso's stock has fluctuated since his stunning unbeaten Bundesliga title with Bayer Leverkusen in 2023-24. His first season at Real Madrid has been solid if unspectacular, with reported tension around managing the club's high-profile personalities.

The coaching case for Alonso: Tactically, he brings structure, positional clarity and defined roles all things sorely missing under Frank. He showed flexibility at Leverkusen, shifting between back-five and back-four systems depending on context. Tottenham's dressing room, with fewer egos than Madrid's, could actually suit his coaching-led approach better.

The concerns: Prising Alonso away from Real Madrid mid-season would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. This is more likely a summer conversation, if it happens at all.

Robbie Keane - The Left-Field Option

Current status: Managing Ferencváros in Hungary, top of the league and in the Europa League knockout phase.

Keane's candidacy might raise eyebrows, but there is substance beneath the sentimentality. He has won league titles in Israel (Maccabi Tel Aviv) and Hungary, earning his coaching credentials through an unconventional but successful path. His deep emotional connection to Spurs 238 appearances, 122 goals is obvious.

The coaching case for Keane: He knows the club's DNA intimately. He could galvanise a squad and a fanbase that desperately need an emotional lift. Former team-mate Michael Dawson has been vocal in backing him for the role.

The concerns: The gap between managing in Hungary and managing in the Premier League relegation fight is enormous. Keane has made clear he would only come on a permanent basis, not as an interim, and Spurs may not be willing to commit to that gamble.

Other Names in the Frame

Oliver Glasner (Crystal Palace) has been discussed as a tactical fit but faces the same "underdog manager" questions as Frank. Marco Silva (Fulham, out of contract this summer) has Premier League experience and the kind of forceful personality Spurs need, but his CV at bigger clubs notably a chaotic spell at Everton, gives cause for concern. Gareth Southgate has admirers within the Spurs hierarchy for his leadership and player-management skills, though his pragmatic style may not excite the fanbase. Xavi has expressed a desire to manage in England and could be tempted by a project like Spurs, though his lack of Premier League experience is a risk.

What This Means for Coaches

Thomas Frank's Tottenham tenure is a case study that coaches at every level should study carefully. It illustrates several fundamental truths about coaching at scale:

Style must match context. Frank's pragmatic, counter-attacking approach was perfect for Brentford but fundamentally misaligned with the expectations, resources and home environment of a club like Tottenham. Coaches stepping up must be prepared not just to adapt their principles but to genuinely expand their tactical identity.

Communication is management. At a smaller club, honesty and understatement can be refreshing. At a big club, communication becomes performative, it must inspire belief, project ambition and manage the emotional temperature of a fanbase. Frank's failure to read the room in press conferences and public moments was as damaging as any tactical shortcoming.

Authority must be earned and maintained differently. At Brentford, Frank's quiet, collaborative style worked perfectly within a tight-knit group. At Spurs, managing international stars with bigger egos and higher expectations required a different kind of presence. The players stopped listening because, as one source put it, Frank "did not have the personality required to coach a big team." Whether that assessment is fair or not, it reflects a reality coaches must reckon with when stepping up.

Institutional stability matters. Frank was coaching through an ownership transition, multiple changes in sporting director and a boardroom that was being rebuilt around him. No coach can thrive without structural alignment. This was not entirely within his control, but it compounded every other challenge he faced.

For Tottenham, the task ahead is immense. They need a coach who can arrest the slide, reconnect with a disillusioned fanbase and eventually, build a team that reflects the ambition of a club that believes it should be competing for the Premier League and the Champions League. Whether that coach is De Zerbi, Pochettino or someone else entirely, the Frank experiment stands as a stark reminder that the step up in football is real, and it claims even the most respected coaches with alarming regularity.