Frank: “We are nothing without our fans”

Tottenham Hotspur don’t get any respite after Saturday’s home loss to Fulham in the Premier League. Spurs now face a daunting trip UP NORF to play Newcastle at St. James’ Park, a stadium where they’ve already lost in the League Cup, and where they haven’t won since 2021. After Saturday’s loss, Spurs have slipped down to tenth.

The vibes surrounding Tottenham are absolutely rancid right now. Tottenham’s home supporters are vociferously booing their own club — and not just at the halftime and full time whistles, but even during the match. Guglielmo Vicario, who made a catastrophic error that directly led to a Fulham goal on Saturday, was booed by Spurs fans every time he touched the ball, as late as ten minutes after the initial incident, and for the second straight home game a Spurs player has walked off the pitch at full time in disgust without acknowledging the home fans. Spurs have won just two home games in the Premier League since last February.

It’s bad out there, folks. Naturally, Thomas Frank was asked about it in his press conference on Monday.

“I completely understand the frustration. If we don’t win, there will always be a frustration. So that is normal and is part of it. Also when we haven’t won as much as we want at home not only this year but the last long period. I don’t know how long that is maybe years, maybe more. Of course then the frustration can grow a little bit more, that is understandable.

“It’s my job to do what I can to make sure we are calm and look at the things in a way where we are splitting things up in terms of performance, what is the impact in how we tried to build the team. That is part of it. We would like to do.

“We are nothing without the fans. No club is anything without the fans. Tottenham Hotspur we are nothing without our fantastic fans. Nothing. We need each other. There is nothing we want more than making them happy in every way.

“My point was during matches that’s where we need each other. After, fair with the booing but during that is when I want to create a fortress. Some of you guys probably have more up to date stats in terms of how many games we have won, lost or drawn in the last couple of years but if any club wants to be successful, you need to create a fortress. If you want to create a fortress, it can only be together. Fans, team.

“My job is to make sure we do everything we can to perform but can we do that together? That’s when you create a very difficult place to play.”

I’m on record multiple times on this website as believing booing your own team’s players is, at best, uncouth and at worst actively damaging. Frank certainly didn’t help his cause when he referenced Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs team last season finishing 17th in the table in a season when they won the Europa League, and later made oblique references to “true fans” not booing during the match. But my personal opinion is that fans giving the mickey to the players they are there to support is counterproductive, no matter how much money you spent on your season ticket.

That’s a sentiment that a lot of fans vehemently disagree with, and that’s fair — I might argue the point, but it’s clear I’ll never convince what is a significant chunk of English football fandom that paying money for a ticket doesn’t give one the right to yell obscenities at the players. It’s a vicious circle, though — Spurs will continue to get booed until they play well enough to win football matches, but the players may not feel the fans are sufficiently behind them to motivate them to wins. It’s nothing that a few wins can’t solve, but every frustrating performance and every stacked loss only adds to the frustration and the misery for everyone involved.

What do you do? For Frank, it’s about continuing the work and pushing through to the other side.

“We of course have meetings yesterday and today. Yesterday, like normal debriefing the Fulham game and today looking more forward to Newcastle. There will be some meetings tomorrow. I said from the beginning we want to build something sustainable that can compete in all tournaments. We have a squad that is learning, and learned from last year playing Europa League and Premier League, going into this year where we are in the Champions League.

“I want to do well in the Premier League. Competing on both fronts that is something that takes time to learn physically and mentally. We are searching to find the right formula that will click while we have to rotate some players to keep freshness, keep the intensity high, do a little bit for injury risk and stuff like that.”

This is not to say Frank is blameless in all of this — it’s pretty clear that Tottenham Hotspur’s players are either not responding well to what Frank is asking them to do, or the team is not set up to execute Frank’s vision. Likely, it’s a little of both, and that’s a tough thing. For fans watching, Frank’s tactics and the team’s performances don’t inspire a lot of confidence, because it’s difficult to get a picture of how exactly Frank wants his teams to play. Here’s Frank when asked about his long-term tactical approach.

“For me, it’s always the guiding principles that is the most important thing. How we build up? What do we do when we split centre-backs? What do we do when we have a sitter or two sitters? What do we do with the position in front of that? How do we attack with playing one on the side? How do we press? And that will always more or less be the same no matter if you play 4-3-1, 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 3-4-3, whatever, so it’s always the guiding principles. It’s about how we can get the best players on the pitch that make the team the best way.”

Coaches say a lot of stuff like this — guiding principles, elements of play. Frank says he wants his players to apply these same principles no matter how they set up or who is on the pitch. And yet, so far this season (with the exception perhaps of the two games against PSG) there doesn’t appear to be much by way of vision, something to strive for, something to aspire to. You get the sense that Spurs fans would be a little more patient with Frank if they saw some, or even any, tangible signs of progress towards a goal. Fans are fickle creatures at the best of times, but most of them can at least look at a project and say “that’s where we want to be” even if the current performances fall short of that ideal.

Thus far, there’s none of that, hence the frustration.

What’s Frank to do? Beats me. Frank has the team he has, and it’s one that is poorly constructed, suffering from multiple critical injuries, and under-performing. It’s tough. There’s a lot going against Tottenham Hotspur right now, and the only way out of a bad performance streak is to perform better. In Frank’s view (and in the view of a lot of Spurs fans like me) having the fans say “the beatings will continue until morale improves” doesn’t help much.

“I think if we were going into every game, I’m pretty sure every fan wants us to win and wants to support and wants to do everything. And then if not going to plan, then maybe some get more frustrated than others. Again, I think there’s always some that shout louder than others, so I don’t think fans, when you say you lose the fans, how many is that? Five per cent? 10 per cent? 15 per cent? 20 per cent? How much is it? I don’t know. We would like to get all 100 per cent on board and there’s only two things we can do. We can perform and keep connected.”

So: further up and further in. Can’t go under it, gotta go through it. Going on a bear hunt, but Franks’ not afraid. He gets another chance to break Spurs out of this slump on Tuesday at St. James’ Park, but it’s not clear how many more chances the fans will allow him to have.