Tottenham Hotspur manager Thomas Frank has revealed that he was pursued by both Manchester United and Chelsea during the summer of 2024, taking a meeting with each Premier League giant in a matter of hours.
Frank was in charge of Brentford at the time and boasted a lofty reputation despite finishing just two places above the relegation zone that season. The Dane had taken the modest club, one he dubbed a “bus stop in Hounslow,” out of the Championship and established them in the Premier League, routinely collecting notable scalps (against United and Chelsea, among others) even while restricted to one of the lowest wage bills in the division.
On May 24, 2024, one day before the FA Cup final between Manchester United and Manchester City, Frank found himself in the London garage of the Red Devils co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Mere hours later, he had trekked across the capital to meet Chelsea’s representatives at the Mayfair Hotel.
“Sitting in for an interview with two of the 10 biggest clubs in the world—two hours apart—is quite unique,” Frank beamed during an interview with TV 2.
“I know I didn’t get either job, but it was still a huge deal. I remember walking through Battersea Park between the two interviews and thinking: ‘Thomas Frank from f------ Frederiksværk—am I really experiencing this?’”
Did Man Utd Make a Mistake Not Hiring Thomas Frank?
United would win that FA Cup final. Frank was not the only candidate on the club’s shortlist of alternatives to Erik ten Hag; Thomas Tuchel, Roberto De Zerbi, Graham Potter, Marco Silva and Mauricio Pochettino were reportedly also under consideration.
However, Ratcliffe ultimately opted to stick with Ten Hag and his trophy, going so far as to hand the Dutch boss a new contract later that summer. By October 2024, he had been sacked.
Ruben Amorim would step into the breach of the listing behemoth, yet has desperately struggled to establish any consistent stream of results. Even after the recent glut of five consecutive unbeaten games, Amorim’s Premier League record pales in comparison to that of Frank over the same time frame, even though the Dane was operating with wildly inferior resources at Brentford for much of this overlap.
Thomas Frank vs. Ruben Amorim in the Premier League
Chelsea’s Gamble on Enzo Maresca Paid Off
Frank met with Chelsea three days after Pochettino parted ways with the free-spending capital club. The Argentine had harnessed the unique talent of Cole Palmer to drag the Blues up to sixth place in 2023–24 but that wasn’t good enough. Enzo Maresca, who got the job instead of Frank despite boasting none of the Dane’s Premier League experience, has justified his appointment.
The helter-skelter nature of the former Leicester City manager’s debut campaign can mask his achievement of taking Chelsea back into the Premier League’s top four. Maresca also added the Conference League and Club World Cup to a trophy cabinet of a club which measure success in silverware, balancing the array of youthful talent foisted upon him by a chaotic transfer strategy which is radically different to the model Frank had become used to at Brentford.
Maresca got his own personal vindication over Frank earlier this month with a painfully lopsided 1–0 win over Tottenham Hotspur in north London.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘Huge Deal’—Man Utd, Chelsea Interviewed Manager Just Two Hours Apart.
