Thomas Frank pays the price for his ineffective, lifeless approach at Tottenham Hotspur but problems persist

Six months into a season, it is not unusual to know what to expect from any given team on any given day and that was certainly the case for anyone who cared to check on Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday as they faced Newcastle United. A sluggish team who seemed a step or two behind the opponent in terms of intensity levels? Check. A porous defense that seems to lack chemistry? Check. An attack that has very few ideas? Check. Few redeeming qualities as the team slouched to yet another Premier League defeat? Check again.

Thomas Frank, whose months-long spell in charge of the team finally came to an end after their latest drab performance, did not create all of Spurs' issues. He is right to point to the fact that he, like his predecessor Ange Postecoglou last season, had to contend with an injury crisis of epic proportions, all while captain Cristian Romero serves a suspension for a red card in their 2-0 defeat at Manchester United on Saturday. He was not wrong to note that this very team finished 17th in the Premier League last season, an admission that the ceiling is only so high for the current iteration of Spurs. Frank, though, did not do himself a single favor during his brief stint in north London, emerging as a rare example of a coach who truly earned a promotion to the big leagues but failed to prove his worth for the most part.

Frank's tenure with Spurs is remarkable for all the wrong reasons, the Denmark native unable to live up to the billing in any real sense. He was supposed to be a practical alternative to Postecoglou, who spent much more time ensuring his team had a functioning attack than a competent defense. It was not the only issue the next coach should have theoretically fixed – his Brentford side were organized when defending set pieces and impactful on the flip side, a signal that Frank's Spurs would be efficient on both ends of the pitch.

His perceived pragmatism, though, was mistaken for ability. Frank inherited a mess but he also failed to improve the issues that were fully in his control. There were very few categories in which Frank made a noticeable positive impact, an underperformance that is easy to spot regardless of how one chooses to define success. Averaging 0.1 more point per match compared to Postecoglou's Spurs last season is not much of a flex, and neither is making an improvement of 0.3 goals against per game when the team ranks 13th in the Premier League when sorting for expected goals against. If Postecoglou was reckless for allowing a porous back line to take shape despite boasting brilliant defenders in Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, Frank is guilty of the same crime despite having the upper hand of a fit first-choice center back duo for much of the season.

Spurs' defensive shortcomings were hard to ignore even in a superficial watch on any given matchday. The defenders at his disposal had years of experience alongside one another and yet appeared completely disjointed, the natural result of Frank failing to lock in tactical foundations and going back to the drawing board more often than a coach of his caliber usually does. His defenders seemed unsure of their next move, unable to rely upon their instincts and mistake-prone as a result. Frustration and despair oozed out of the players each time a goal was conceded, no matter how predictable it was; contempt grew amongst the fanbase, who were more prone to booing than cheering quickly enough in Frank's tenure.

Frank's Spurs underperformed in equal measure in front of goal. The coach had the bare bones of an attacking idea from the start of the season, one that seemed to go hand-in-hand with Spurs' odd squad construction. He would bypass midfield for the most part and instead prioritize play on the wings to generate attacking opportunities, a solution of sorts for a team that lacked any real passers after James Maddison tore his ACL in preseason, all while nicking a few goals off of set pieces. That plan did not pan out all that much – Spurs' attacking statistics this season are buoyed by an early season blitz in which they outperformed their expected goals tally, a run of beginner's luck that is generally hard to sustain.

In no time at all, Spurs were out of ideas. Completing simple attacking plays was a difficult task, while their game was never built around earning more set pieces even though it was the rare area of the game they actually excelled in. At times, Frank sucked the life out of games instead, hoping his disinterest in scoring goals would grind opponents' attacks into dust. The coach gave an overly conservative approach the runout a handful of times last fall in matches that could have served as statement-making performances and at this point, it should come as no surprise that it did not work. Spurs tallied three shots and 0.12 xG in a 1-0 loss to Chelsea in which the Blues were unlucky not to have scored more as they racked up 15 attempts and 3.68 xG. Days later, Arsenal made sure not to waste their chances – they cruised to a 4-1 win as they tallied 17 shots and 1.93 xG, all while Spurs had three shots and 0.07 xG to speak of. It was evidently worse than Postecoglou's figures, but even Frank's own in his final season at Brentford.

The inability to defend and attack properly was visible even at the end of Frank's tenure, perfectly encapsulated in the final goal Spurs conceded before his firing. His side could not complete a simple breakaway minutes after notching an equalizer against Newcastle, instead letting Anthony Gordon dance around a still Spurs defense before Jacob Ramsey popped the ball into the back fo the net.

Frank's Spurs were lifeless, a whiplash-inducing exercise for anyone who remembers watching Postecoglou's version of the team. It was strange to watch Frank's Spurs give attacking a try for 45 minutes at a time every third or fourth game and then settle into a defensive structure that they could not maintain, inviting opponents into the match rather than killing the game entirely. Almost singlehandedly, he demonstrated that the belief that pragmatism is inherently efficient is a trope rather than a tried and tested philosophy for success in this sport. There is nothing practical about taking the foot off the gas when things are trending in the right direction. It is not effective to keep taking a stab at a losing strategy, hoping it will finally turn good. It is painfully unrealistic not to find a way to lean on your strengths, even if they are few and far between. There is nothing sensible about failing to lay down tactical foundations, rendering your team unable to execute a stylistic vision that seems like a prerequisite to being an elite coach.

With Frank at the helm, Spurs merely dragged their feet through matches as if they were simply there to collect an attendance award rather than play. No one wins trophies with style points but Frank proved one can certainly lose without them, his team always hitting the pitch with a sense of aimlessness. It is no wonder, then, that he drew the ire of the Spurs faithful, who, unlike his team in attack, wasted no chance to lambast him for spearheading a "boring, boring Tottenham" – in every sense, he sucked the entertainment value and the inherent joy out of the game. In a landscape where the sport's next great managers increasingly prefer tactical rigidity, Frank's Spurs will act as a prime example in the downside of straying too far down that path. Being cautious does not inherently come with rewards, nor does it necessarily come with stability and in this case, it can slowly contribute to the erosion of an already decaying product. It forces existential questions, too, of what exactly the point of this particular exercise was for a team in desperate need of a course correction.

Spurs' squad may not be up to the task of finishing even remotely close to a UEFA Champions League spot, but neither is Frank. In an age where clubs are quick to dispose of managers, he was given a chance but threw it away completely, the glimmer of hope that came in the UEFA Super Cup outing against Paris Saint-Germain an outlier rather than the start of a promising trend. Frank's firing will require a serious rethink by Spurs' leaders, many of whom are brand new to their roles after longtime chairman Daniel Levy's exit in September, because their current woes are the result of years of mismanagement and remarkably poor squad building, their trip to the Champions League final seven years ago now a distant memory of a long-gone era.