Welcome, then, to another of those Spurs weeks, where the executives are deeply concerned and it is impossible to ignore the sense of foreboding. The 4-1 derby humiliation at Arsenal on Sunday ensured the club are playing a game of crisis‑baton hot potato with Liverpool and surely the last thing that the manager, Thomas Frank, needs is a Champions League trip to Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night.
This is not the greatest worry because it is just about possible to paint the game against the European champions as a free hit. Even in the best of times, nobody would have expected much from Tottenham there. With two wins and two draws from four matches they can afford to lose this one.
Plainly, a heavy defeat would be less than ideal given Spurs have been bad more often than good since the end of September after an encouraging start to Frank’s tenure. He and the players will see an opportunity to take steps, whether big or small, towards what they believe is their true level. They will remember how they pushed PSG all the way in the Uefa Super Cup at the start of the season, losing on penalties.
What is casting the long shadows and sending chills everywhere, is the home game against Fulham on Saturday. Teams are supposed to prefer playing on their own turf, but it is a long way from looking like the case for Spurs, certainly in the Premier League, the competition that matters the most in the boardroom, the one that dictates the manager’s job security.
It was not Frank’s fault that he inherited a squad that had won two, drawn three and lost nine of the previous 14 home league games under Ange Postecoglou. It is on him that he has failed to drive any discernible improvement. His record reads: W1 D2 L3.
The low point came in the 1-0 defeat against Chelsea at the beginning of November when the players were booed off. They were creatively bankrupt, their expected goals of 0.05 the lowest of any team in the league this season. It was 0.07 at Arsenal, the second-lowest.
There would be more well‑documented boos from the stands in the next home league game against Manchester United a week later; for Richarlison when he played a loose pass, for Frank when he substituted Xavi Simons. After a wild finale, it ended 2-2.
Between times, there was the 4-0 Champions League win there against Copenhagen and an episode that went largely under the radar but feels instructive, an emblem of the Temple of Grumbling. When the Tottenham substitute Dane Scarlett won a stoppage-time penalty, the South Stand wanted him to take it. Instead, Richarlison grabbed the ball in his trademark elbows-out style. He was the designated taker so why not?
Boos for Richarlison came from the South Stand. Did it affect him as he went through his mental preparations? It is unclear. But he did miss. It mattered not, because the game was long since over. It was, nevertheless, extraordinary.
The Fulham game will be Tottenham’s first at home since United and, at this distance, it is one that Frank desperately needs to win. At the very least, he needs a performance, something in attacking terms, because too often his team have failed to fire. In the 1-0 home defeat against Bournemouth at the end of August, they recorded an xG of 0.19.
It must be noted that Frank has been without the injured Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison all season and Dominic Solanke for pretty much all of it. He has tried every combination of his other attacking players, the impression being that he is groping for, and failing to find, the right blend.
Mohammed Kudus (who has been generally bright), Brennan Johnson, Simons, Wilson Odobert, Mathys Tel and Randal Kolo Muani have five league goals between them. Richarlison has five himself.
The Arsenal game was a disaster and everyone at Spurs was aware it could have been even worse. Eberechi Eze scored a fairytale hat‑trick and might have had four or five. What made it so bad for Frank was the optics of his switch to a 5-4-1 formation. When he went back to 4-3-3 for the second half, his team were 2-0 down.
Only once previously had Frank started with a back five – against PSG in the Super Cup, which he described as a “special operation”, a move necessitated partly by having had only six weeks to work with the players. If the Spurs support are going to see their team lose, they would prefer it if they threw a few punches.
As an aside, Frank’s decision to drop Pedro Porro for the second time was a huge call. The full-back is an extremely popular member of the dressing room.
The lack of creativity, the absence of options on the ball, felt like the biggest problem. To Frank, it was not so. As he picked over the wreckage, he had more urgent worries. The lack of aggression – in the duels and the press. The inability to get close to Arsenal’s players. The failure to force turnovers high up.
Frank was asked whether he had seen enough fight in his team. “We were 100% too far from them in these duels we wanted to create or getting pressure, getting close,” he said. “In those duels, we didn’t win enough of them. If that’s a lack of fight, a lack of whatever it is … we just didn’t do it well enough.”
It was a typically honest answer, but utterly damning. The Spurs manager has his work cut out to spark a reaction from his players.
