There have been plenty of bad performances, awful results and toxic moments at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium so far this season. But until Saturday, there had been nothing quite like this.
It was not just about the performance, where Spurs looked utterly devoid of confidence in a painful first half, after which West Ham should have been well out of sight. Not just the ending, where Callum Wilson bundled in a 93rd-minute winner from a corner to make it 2-1. And not just the result either, with Spurs’ fifth home league defeat of the season, leaving them on a run of two league wins from their last 13 games. They have taken two points from four league games — all against nominally easier opposition — in 2026.
What truly stood out here today was none of that. Because at this point, bad performances and bad results have been comprehensively priced in by the Spurs fans. No one is showing up to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium right now with high expectations about dazzling football, or any real hope of seeing Spurs racking up goals, or even grinding out results. Tottenham fans have been nothing if not clear-eyed and realistic about what they have been watching.
So, the real story here was not the performance or the result, as bad as they both were. But rather the further damage done to Thomas Frank’s standing with the home fans. After Wilson’s winner, there were — louder than ever before this season — clear chants of, “You’re getting sacked in the morning” directed at Frank, largely coming from the south stand.
After the final whistle, Frank walked out onto the pitch to shake hands with the officials, and staff and players from both teams. Every time Frank moved out of a crowd of people and became visible to the fans, he was booed. It felt especially pointed that when a few of the Spurs players went over to clap the fans at the end, they were rewarded with reciprocal applause.
There has been plenty of booing from Spurs fans this year, some of it directed at results, some at performances, some at officials, some at the players in general, some at players in particular. But the striking development of this month has been that the booing has been directed clearly, unambiguously and personally at Frank himself. That has been true at away games for some time — at Brentford, at Bournemouth — and today it was true at home too.
It feels as if the relationship between Frank and the Spurs fans, which has never been especially warm, is now broken forever. It is hard to see how it can recover from this. The only way would be with Spurs going on a long run of wins, but no one who has watched them play recently would bet on that.
This toxicity will surely prove corrosive to Frank in the end. Because even the positive case for Frank being Spurs manager rested on his ability to rebuild the culture, to bring people together, to transform the environment into one where everyone pulls in the same direction. And he is certainly a good people person, very popular behind the scenes, someone who tries to go about things the right way. But when almost every single Spurs game ends with discord, booing, pain, public rows, public anger — whether between Frank, the players, the fans or a combination — then how good can the culture be? What does it say about the aligned environment?
Everyone left here on Saturday evening knowing they will be be back again in just 72 hours to see Spurs host Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League. And yet, as big as that game feels, the real test will come at Turf Moor next Saturday. Losing to West Ham was awful, but if they lose again at Burnley — three points behind West Ham — it is hard to see how the manager’s position could still be tenable. That game now feels like the decisive moment, one of the last chances to prove that this is, in fact, progressing.
One of the most striking things about Tottenham this season is their ability to keep finding new nadirs. You never know when the next one will be. And it might be that Turf Moor — even more so than this Saturday — turns into the nadir that truly defines Frank’s tenure.
Frank put a brave face on it when he gave his post-match press conference. He talked up the support he has been given by the Tottenham hierarchy, saying how “aligned” the whole club is. He compared his work to the long arduous task of turning a “supertanker” around, and insisted they are turning in the “right direction”.
Many fans will wonder how Frank can be so sure Spurs are moving in the right direction, or indeed any direction at all. For many, the experience of watching the team make the same mistakes week after week, with no obvious progress, no obvious solutions, will instead feel that this particular tanker has got stuck like the Ever Given in the Suez Canal.
Despite many earnest attempts, that ship never did successfully turn around. Instead, it had to be refloated and salvaged by a flotilla of helpful tugboats. The question, as more and more Tottenham fans lose faith in the captain of this ship, is who or what will be able to stop it running aground permanently.