Thomas Frank went easy on the Tottenham players and that is something the latest manager, Roberto De Zerbi, will surely avoid doing as he prepares for a seven-game relegation fight
This might be wide of the mark but my guess is that Roberto de Zerbi will not make extensive use of Thomas Frank’s padel court.
I might be completely wrong but De Zerbi does not look like the padel type. And we all know the padel type. They can’t stop telling you they play padel. Like vegans tell you they are vegan, or people who use air-fryers tell you they use air-fryers.
Nothing wrong with padel, of course - or veganism, or air-fryers, for that matter. But it is just a bit, er, nice. Frank was just a bit nice.
For a BBC interview when he was Brentford manager, Frank went to Gary Lineker’s home in Barnes and the pair shared a lunch cooked by the host. A crab starter was followed by sole meunière. Nice.
The accompanying, chilled white wine was unnamed, but it was probably a Chablis, or a Puligny-Montrachet perhaps. Nice. Barnes, in case you don’t know, is the homeland of posh bohemia. Nice.
Thomas Frank is nice. That does not mean he is not a good manager, he clearly is. But he was too nice for this collection of Tottenham Hotspur players.
A few must have had wry smiles on their faces when they saw him having padel courts built at the Spurs training ground.
Now they are up a creek, these players need a different character to paddle them out of it. And De Zerbi certainly strikes you as different to Frank.
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And, boy, do Spurs need an influential manager. They need the brilliant coach that so many of his contemporaries seem to think De Zerbi is.
But they also need someone to tell them some home truths, to rile them, to fall out with them, even. And De Zerbi has form for falling out with people, which is why the idea of him fulfilling a five-year deal at Spurs seems a bit fanciful.
He was not popular with everyone in the Brighton dressing-room - notably Leandro Trossard - and the same was true when he went to Marseille. He also had a few run-ins with the French media, prior to which were well-publicised differences with the Brighton board.
It might come across as an obvious simplification but this is what Spurs need right now. After Frank’s nice tenure and Igor Tudor’s bizarre, nondescript cameo, they need fire. They need a high-octane coach. Players need to know that there will be consequences if attitudes are not right.
And with De Zerbi in charge next season regardless of their fate this season, there will be consequences. The players will know that.
It has been a slightly odd start, with De Zerbi issuing an apology over his comments on one of his former employees, Mason Greenwood. But you get the feeling that will be the one and only time De Zerbi apologises as Spurs manager.
Saying sorry is generally a nice thing. And Spurs don’t need nice right now.