When Thomas Frank glances along the touchline at Nuno Espírito Santo on Saturday afternoon, he will see more than the ghost of Tottenham managers past. Because during his darkest hours – and there have been a few of those during a fraught first season at the club – he may also have seen a vision of his own future.
The parallels between the two are clear and they are difficult to ignore as Nuno makes his return to Spurs with West Ham, desperate for a result to help lift the club out of the relegation places. When Nuno went to Spurs in 2021, he did so as a manager who had made his name in English football with Wolves, getting them promoted from the Championship and going on to enjoy success with them in the top division. Ditto Frank with Brentford before his move to Spurs last summer.
Nuno started brightly, recording a win against Manchester City. But then, as with Frank, there were dismal defeats against Chelsea and Arsenal, the booing of some of his substitutions and an overall feeling of frustration. Nuno was sacked after 10 league games, his team having collected 15 points.
There are obvious differences. Nuno had Harry Kane and Son Heung-min in their prime. Frank has missed the injured Dejan Kulusevki and James Maddison throughout his tenure and has only just got Dominic Solanke back after a long-term absence. Nuno also arrived at a club that was used to being up in the European qualifying places. Frank, meanwhile, inherited a team that had finished 17th.
Nuno was given a two-year contract and there was a short‑term feel around his appointment, the sense that if a ready-made replacement became available – like, say, Antonio Conte – he could be vulnerable. Nuno was a long way down Spurs’s original shortlist and he was appointed after a 72-day search.
Frank, by contrast, was the number-one choice. He was hired quickly and given a three-year deal. The talk around him has been of a long-term rebuild, with Spurs restructuring their ownership and making numerous head‑of‑department changes.
Nobody likes to talk about transitional seasons in football. They have had to do so at Spurs. Yet there is one further similarity between Frank and Nuno that nags grimly, bringing worry to the Spurs fanbase, polluting the atmosphere, especially at home, where the team have won just twice in the league (only two clubs – West Ham and Wolves – have taken fewer points on their own turf). It concerns the playing style.
Nuno brought with him a reputation for pragmatism, prioritising defensive strength, seeking to land his punches mainly on the counter. He was not associated with attractive passing up through the thirds. The same perception tracked Frank from Brentford and he has so far done little to alter it.
The Spurs support are not famous for their patience and they will not tolerate a gameplan that lacks pace and excitement, attacking thrust or creativity. Nuno’s failure to provide one was the single biggest factor in his demise. It will do for Frank, as well, unless he can add fresh layers to his approach. What the eyes have seen so far under Frank is a stodginess to the buildup play, a predictability, a lack of options. They have been blunt and the statistics only reinforce things. According to Opta, no team in the league has played fewer through balls than Spurs, while only two have sent over more unsuccessful crosses in open play.
Spurs are 15th for shots on target; 16th for total shots and touches in the opposition box. An interesting detail is that they have massively outperformed their expected goals number in the league, which stands at 20.5. They have scored 30 times; no team has overdelivered by a greater margin. What happens when Spurs revert to the mean? It is also worth noting they are equal 17th for high turnovers forced and 20th for the number of shots resulting from such situations.
Frank is well aware of the data, although he disputed the line about the high turnovers, believing his team are among the best in the division by this metric. He is supplied with incredible minutiae by his analysts. For example, one of them told him recently that Guglielmo Vicario was the goalkeeper with the most clearances with his weaker foot.
Frank leans into this, saying during the preparations for West Ham that he was aware his team had made the fewest deep runs in behind opposition defences in the opening months of the season. That has been addressed. “In the last seven or eight games, we have improved this more and more, we are gradually moving up [this list],” says the Dane. “You need to run in behind if you want to score goals.”
The bottom line is that Frank is reasonably happy with the defensive improvements he has overseen, together with those on set pieces, and is extremely conscious of the need to be better going forward. Solanke will help when he is fully fit, a proper pressing No 9 who can come short to link the play or run in behind, and the signing of Conor Gallagher has lifted the mood.
Spurs are 14th, one place lower than they were at this stage last season, albeit three points better off. They have won three of their past 14 league games, they have just gone out of the FA Cup to Aston Villa and, from the outside looking in, it would be easy to think that Frank would be in big trouble if he lost to West Ham. Everybody knows how the Spurs crowd would react to that. But from the inside looking out, there is no sense that Frank is in immediate danger – and not only because nobody is going into the game thinking about a bad result. The hierarchy knows where the club are, the realities.
Frank said the arrivals of Gallagher and the new assistant coach, John Heitinga, were “definitely a very good sign” of the backing he has at boardroom level, and he radiated confidence and calm, insisting he has seen positives in the past six matches; a decent half here and there, a greater ability to deal with setbacks, the culture within the squad getting stronger. Nuno’s unloved Spurs tenure, the lack of any connection with the fans, provides a warning. Frank does not need it.
