Tottenham Hotspur have sacked Thomas Frank just eight months after appointing him.
The Dane had come under increasing pressure in recent weeks amid a run which has seen Spurs slip to 16th in the Premier League table, with Tuesday’s loss at home to Newcastle United coming as the final straw for his superiors.
The writing seemed to be on the wall for the former Brentford manager and now his dismal spell is over.
Frank won just seven of his 26 league games in charge of the club and lost 11 of them.
His team were unable to convert their promising Champions League form into the Premier League, a competition in which Spurs haven’t won in since December 28.
They have picked up just two points in their past six league games and Frank and the players were heavily booed during and after the 2-1 defeat by Newcastle, while Frak was again subjected to chants of ‘sacked in the morning’ by his own fans.
Tottenham Hotspur have sacked Thomas Frank just eight months after appointing him
The doomed Spurs boss came out fighting post-match after the defeat at Manchester United on Saturday, where they were on the back foot following the first-half dismissal of captain Cristian Romero.
But Frank danced around the ‘R’ word that is haunting Tottenham supporters and did his utmost to avoid saying it ahead of the Newcastle game. Only once did he utter ‘relegation’ during a 30-minute press conference dominated by questions on the subject.
That moment came in response to a parallel drawn to Tuesday night’s opponents Newcastle and their team featuring Michael Owen, Shay Given and Damien Duff, relegated in 2009 after being dubbed too good to go down.
Frank’s point was that if Spurs were ‘a little bit higher’ the questions would be about reaching the ‘top four’, but because they were ‘not as high’ the questions were about ‘relegation’ and either way, his answer would be the same, that he was only focused on the next game.
‘There’s no doubt we are desperate to win games,’ Frank said and reinforced it for effect. ‘Desperate.’ He is, at least, more comfortable with the d-word than the r-word.
‘When you haven’t won enough, you need to be desperate, because if you’re not desperate, you don’t understand the situation you’re in. In terms of you don’t win enough. You need to turn it and win enough football games. That’s what we want for the fans, that’s what we want for the team, for the club.’
The uncomfortable truth, however, is that Spurs are deep in a trench of relegation form. And Frank has paid the price.
