Thomas Frank could have picked any word. He could have called it “unhelpful” to boo Guglielmo Vicario during the defeat to Fulham, or “disrespectful”. Maybe “unpleasant” would have worked. Perhaps “unnecessary” too.
But he had to go for “unacceptable”, in turn supplying ample ammunition for those same supporters he decided to call out after yet another home abomination.
They probably deem it “unacceptable” to win fewer Premier League home games in 2025 than West Ham, Wolves and Sunderland. They might think it “unacceptable” to slip below Frank’s former club in the table. They may feel it “unacceptable” to rank below every team bar Wolves and Burnley for shots per game. They could consider it “unacceptable” for the entire team to have played a league-low six through balls all season, as many as James Tarkowski has mustered on his own.
Being two goals down at the earliest point in the entire club’s Premier League history, at home to a team which had last won away on the penultimate day of last season? That right there is “unacceptable”.
It has taken Frank five months to achieve what his predecessors managed in much more time. Ange Postecoglou took nearly two years to properly and publicly turn on the fans, while Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte waited admirably long to explain in painstaking detail just how much they fundamentally despise Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
In being pushed over that edge so remarkably quickly, Frank has drawn battle lines for a conflict he cannot possibly hope to win.
Gatekeeping what and who “true Tottenham fans” are achieves precisely nothing positive. Even Vicario, who called for “cooler heads” and “a little bit more help during some situations from the stands” after the miserable defeat to Chelsea, had learned that trying to turn the mirror on supporters could only be a dreadful reflection on those actually in control of what happens on the pitch.
“It’s part of football,” said the keeper. “I’m a big man and older. We can’t be influenced by the situation in the stands. The fans have the right to do what they think. It’s on us to stay calm.”
Frank himself admitted “this game we lost in the first six minutes,” so why would fans not vocalise their anger and frustration at that during the subsequent 90?
When Kenny Tete opened the scoring with a deflected strike it was the first time since September 2003 that Spurs had trailed in six consecutive home Premier League games. They should know never to go full Glenn Hoddle – and that streak did actually directly culminate in his sacking after defeats to Southampton and, of course, Fulham at the start of that season.
Spurs in the modern day have now lost three of their last four meetings with Fulham, drawing the other. There is no use speculating whether Marco Silva would have fared better than Frank but it is also typically funny that the club appears to have made the wrong choice, and that the universe wishes for that to be underlined, emboldened and italicised.
Even when Mohammed Kudus halved the deficit with a fine goal from Lucas Bergvall’s pass on the hour, there was no inevitability over the completion of a comeback. Spurs were on top but Fulham were comfortable. The visitors actually had the last shot of the game in the 84th minute, and rode out the last ten masterfully.
This was supposed to be the resistible force against the movable object; as atrocious as Spurs have been at home this season, Fulham had been wretched away, taking a single point from their last six games on their travels.
Yet they were made to look especially phenomenal in the opening 15 minutes in particular as Spurs summarily squandered any sense of momentum having been built in that curious PSG defeat.
Pedro Porro vowed that they ‘going to bring the same attitude and ambition’ from the Parc des Princes in midweek to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday. He ended the evening heading straight for the tunnel, re-emerging only to shout at Bergvall – seemingly for applauding the supporters – and storming off again.
Frank, seemingly eager to pick unwinnable fights with the fans, might be better served figuring out why such insolence is becoming a running theme after insipid home defeats, and why his players felt compelled to hold a sort of impromptu team talk on the pitch at half time before retreating to the dressing room.
Those acts feel a little more “unacceptable” than fans openly wondering why they are choosing to spend their time and money on watching this mess every other week.