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 Spurs usually chase: modern, adaptable, and proven at building a team with a clear identity. Tottenham even tied him down on 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 — 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 club moved quickly, confirming
Frank’s departure and pointing plainly to “results and performances” as the reason.
Frank leaves with a record that captures the contradiction: a team good enough to look sharp in Europe, yet fragile and familiar in the league. It is the most Tottenham thing of all — promise, noise, and then a hard landing.
But by February, the story had flipped from “fresh start” to firefighting. Tuesday’s 2-1 home defeat to Newcastle — 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 club moved quickly, confirming Frank’s departure and pointing plainly to “results and performances” as the reason.
Frank leaves with a record that captures the contradiction: a team good enough to look sharp in Europe, yet fragile and familiar in the league. It is the most Tottenham thing of all — promise, noise, and then a hard landing.
From promise to panic
The Newcastle game distilled what went wrong: Spurs looked passive early, grew into the second half, then retreated again at the moment a serious team pushes on. Frank’s side are winless in eight 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. Spurs have won just two of their last 17 league games, and the latest league win on record came back on 28 December (1-0 vs Crystal Palace). At home — where Tottenham’s best eras are usually built — the floor fell out, with only two home league wins under Frank across 13 matches.
When a club 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 Spurs never settled. The Premier League notes that 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 of his matches because of fitness issues. Against Newcastle alone, Spurs had 11 players unavailable (with captain Cristian Romero suspended) and even lost Wilson Odobert during the game.
That pain echoes last season’s chaos under Ange Postecoglou, when Spurs finished 17th and Postecoglou was dismissed despite winning the 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 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 can’t coach away quickly.
What next for Spurs?
First, Spurs need to stabilise the 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.
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’s also a strange opportunity here, because Europe has been the one place Spurs looked coherent — finishing fourth in their 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 club also has 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
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: Maddison and Kulusevski never played for him, Solanke barely stayed fit, and Spurs were still fielding line-ups patched together by necessity. When you’re winless in the league all year and sitting 16th, five points from the drop, good ideas stop being “progress” and start being “theory.”
The Newcastle defeat 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 didn’t fail because he lacked ability; he failed because Tottenham didn’t give him the conditions that turn ability into results.
Can Spurs 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 isn’t 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.
