Following a summer in which Ange Postecoglou was fired as Tottenham coach after winning the Europa League, can Thomas Frank build on that triumph?
LONDON — Thomas Frank remarked on the glorious sunshine at Hotspur Way on Friday, shortly before addressing whether Tottenham Hotspur were where he wanted them to be on the eve of his first Premier League game in charge at the club.
“That’s a good question”, he began. “I think that will be an ongoing, how can you say, process throughout the season. Throughout seasons because you constantly want to build on those layers, that’s what I am a big believer of. We’ve had five weeks, something like that, that’s been really good.”
Those five weeks have taken in friendlies against Reading, Wycombe and Luton before embarking on a preseason tour to Hong Kong and South Korea, where they beat Arsenal and drew with Newcastle United.
Frank’s first competitive game in charge came on Wednesday, an agonising UEFA Super Cup defeat to Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain. Spurs were 2-0 up with five minutes to play in Udine but a late PSG comeback forced a penalty shootout which Tottenham lost 4-3. Next up, newly-promoted Burnley.
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“I am very pleased and proud with how the team performed on Wednesday against PSG”, said Frank. “In that part of the game, that shows we have got far with the defensive side of the game: high pressure, middle pressure, low pressure, set pieces, aggressivity, intensity, mentality.
“Now we have another part of the game. It will be more offensive tomorrow. We have to, and we want to. That’s probably — completely honestly — an area where we are not fully firing yet for various reasons.
“We will have a plan. We will be very ready tomorrow but all that added together, to do that consistently every game, that will not be fully firing. Hopefully tomorrow it will be very good, the next three games we can build it and go again.”
After following the team in Asia and Italy, ESPN examines Frank’s preseason, the task he has inherited and his first steps in trying to take Tottenham to the top of the game.
Sources have told ESPN that the Spurs hierarchy were conscious of making a logical decision and not an emotional one in response to the club’s Europa League triumph. Few managers are sacked after enjoying an open-top bus parade, but Ange Postecoglou had presided over 22 league defeats and a 17th-place finish: their worst-ever Premier League season. The Australian essentially sacrificed everything else in pursuit of a first trophy in 17 years, believing it was an acceptable price to pay for ending the wait for silverware, which had become akin to an existential crisis for the club.
Unfortunately for Postecoglou, Tottenham’s key decision-makers disagreed. Sources have told ESPN that the search for his replacement involved data modeling more than 30 coaches, including some who were definitely not available, to gain a more complete picture of their comparative skills.
There were 10 criteria which, sources say, included a track record in working and developing young players, an ability to communicate with the media and an attractive style of attacking football. A shortlist of four names emerged and Spurs met with all four candidates, asking each for their own personal assessment of the squad and where money should be spent.
Sources say Frank, having got Brentford promoted to the Premier League and then consolidated their top-flight status in his seven years at the club, was the unanimous choice. Shortly after taking charge, Frank gathered together everyone at Spurs’ Hotspur Way training ground — not just the first-team operation, but all staff at all levels — at which sources say he began discussing the need for togetherness and unity, something that has quickly become a consistent theme of his messaging.
