Thomas Frank’s time at Tottenham has come to a disappointing end as the overarching problems in the background end up sacrificing another top-quality manager.
Thomas Frank arrived in North London last summer with the sort of reputation Tottenham Hotspur usually chase: modern, adaptable, and proven at building a team with a clear identity. Spurs even tied him down to a deal running until 2028, signalling they wanted a proper project rather than another short-term fix.
The opening weeks fed that optimism, with Frank winning three of his first four Premier League matches and giving PSG a narrow fright in the UEFA Super Cup. But by February, the story had flipped from “fresh start” to firefighting.
Tuesday’s 2-1 home defeat to Newcastle United, thanks to Malick Thiaw’s opener, Archie Gray’s brief equaliser, Jacob Ramsey’s winner, became the last straw, dropping Spurs to 16th and extending a grim stretch of results. The North Londoners have moved quickly since then.
Thomas Frank leaves Tottenham with a record that captures the contradiction: a team good enough to look sharp in Europe, yet fragile and familiar in the Premier League. It is the most Tottenham thing of all; promise, noise, and then a hard landing. In the official confirming Frank’s departure, Tottenham pointed plainly to “results and performances” as the reason.
From promise to panic
The Newcastle United game distilled what went wrong. Tottenham looked passive early, grew into the second half, then retreated again at the moment a serious team pushes on. Spurs are winless in eight Premier League matches and still without a domestic victory in 2026, which is the kind of run that turns any tactical plan into background music.
There were warning signs before February, too. The North Londoners have won just two of their last 17 Premier League games, and their most recent league victory on record came back on December 28 (1-0 vs Crystal Palace).
At home, where Tottenham’s best eras were usually built, the floor fell out, having managed only two home league wins under Frank across 13 matches. When a team is 16th and only five points clear of the relegation zone, nuance disappears: performances become “not enough,” and potential becomes “not now.”
Injuries and institutional drag
Injuries matter here, and not as an excuse but as context for why Tottenham never settled under Thomas Frank. Neither James Maddison nor Dejan Kulusevski played a single competitive minute under Frank due to long-term knee injuries, while Dominic Solanke featured in only 11 games because of fitness issues.
Against Newcastle United alone, Spurs had 11 players unavailable (with captain Cristian Romero suspended), and they even lost Wilson Odobert during the game. That pain echoes last season’s chaos under Ange Postecoglou, when Spurs finished 17th, leading to the Australian tactician’s dismissal despite winning the UEFA Europa League and ending the club’s long trophy wait.
Postecoglou’s campaign, too, was shaped by a heavy injury list and questions over whether the demands of his system contributed to the physical toll. Still, Tottenham’s decision to sack Frank is defensible on the cold numbers.
The North London club’s own reasoning was blunt, and their league position, paired with that 2026 winless run, made the status quo feel like consent to drift. The bigger worry is what sits behind every reset: unstable weeks become unstable seasons, and managers inherit problems they cannot coach away quickly.
What next for Tottenham after Thomas Frank’s exit?
First, Tottenham need to stabilise the Premier League form before the conversation turns uglier. They sit 16th, five points above 18th, and the margin for error is thin enough that “one good month” can change the table, or one bad fortnight can swallow you in the relegation dogfight.
The immediate assignment is brutal: the next coach’s first league match is a North London derby at home to Arsenal on 22 February. Yet there is also a strange opportunity here, because Europe has been the one place Spurs looked coherent, having finished fourth in their UEFA Champions League group stage and reaching the round of 16 directly.
A new manager can absolutely lift results through simpler roles, tougher game management, and clearer selection principles. But the North Londoners also have to protect the next coach from the same cycle: squad availability, recruitment logic, and leadership alignment cannot keep changing shape every time the wind changes.
Conclusion
Thomas Frank was probably doomed the moment Tottenham decided his appointment was a “fresh start” rather than a long rebuild, because Spurs have become a club where time is promised publicly and borrowed privately.
He walked into a season that demanded immediate league competence, even as the squad’s spine kept breaking down: James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski never played for him; Dominic Solanke barely stayed fit, and Spurs were still fielding line-ups patched together by necessity. When you are winless in the league all year and sitting 16th, five points from the drop, good ideas stop being “progress” and start being “theory.”
The defeat to Newcastle United was the final, noisy proof that Tottenham had lost the middle ground—not quite collapsing, not quite recovering—and the club’s statement effectively admitted that waiting longer felt riskier than changing course. In that sense, Frank did not fail because he lacked ability; he failed because Tottenham did not give him the conditions that turn ability into results.
Can Tottenham recover under a new manager? Yes, because there is still enough quality to climb away from the bottom pack, and the Champions League run suggests the ceiling is not imaginary. But if the next coach is asked to fix the league table without Spurs fixing themselves, the ending may not feel new at all.
