Watching Archie Gray play these last few weeks has been an absolute treat, and the only thing Tottenham Hotspur fans can think - other than absolute joy at having one of the best young holding midfielders in the Premier League - is how on earth Thomas Frank was keeping this guy locked up behind Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur to start the season.
That was not Frank's only ill with Gray, of course. Despite burying him to start with, Gray was so good that even Frank had to start him over Bentancur at some point. But even then, Gray, like Lucas Bergvall and Xavi SImons, was being actively held back by Frank tactically despite being the one deep lying midfielder brave enough to try and drive the ball forward.
With Igor Tudor stepping in charge as Spurs manager, Tottenham have been more expansive and capable of creating chances. While it only yielded the one goal against Liverpool in a draw last weekend, Spurs were able to grab three against a usually tough Atletico Madrid defense, ripping them apart with precision with Gray as the grand architect from deep, siphoning play to Mathys Tel and Xavi Simons.
Thomas Frank was making Archie Gray look less brilliant
While Gray is far from the only Tottenham Hotspur standout to have suffered under Frank, his transformation almost immediately into a top class midfielder with Tudor in charge is perhaps the biggest indictment on how incompetent Frank was as a manager in his lack of talent ID and especially his inability to organize a functioning Premier League unit in midfield that can create chances.
Frank was hailed as a genius at Brentford, and now the fan theory that he was simply hired because he would just implement the Bees pre defined analytical principles is gaining more credence. He may a fraud of the highest order, simply propped up by a media that was inexplicably treating him with kid's gloves even as he turned a club as massive as Spurs, that had just won the Europa League and made a ton of signings that even Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho never got, into an utter laughingstock in the relegation zone.