To reach that state just three months into the 2025/26 season, especially when the first four weeks were going so well, is an indictment of modern football’s short-termism, which has sped up to such an extent that barely anybody is left calling for patience, is left fondly remembering the benefits of letting a manager slowly rebuild a club.
Ange Postecoglou’s sacking after just 39 days as Nottingham Forest was shocking because it wasn’t shocking; because supposedly rational journalists across the spectrum agreed his position was untenable. That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, now it is the norm. If Frank is sacked this week nobody will be surprised. Few would defend him on the grounds of how little time he has had.
“I think it's pretty evident that if no one gets the time, no one can turn this around,” Frank said after the defeat at Forest. “This is not a quick fix.”
Those words will fall on deaf ears. Boardrooms increasingly believe there very much is a “quick fix”, which is to cycle through head coaches until they find someone who hits the ground running. What was once correctly seen as the exception has become the benchmark.
And Frank is right when he says that anyone would need time to “turn this around”, although again there is a disconnect between reality and public perception that will work against him. The common view is that Spurs are in a strong position, are a super-club playing Champions League football who ought to be on Aston Villa’s trajectory right now, and yet this is a club who finished 17th last season and are trying to rebuild an entire attack after the sale of Heung-Min Son.
Not unlike Manchester United, Spurs risk becoming stuck between expectations and reality; unwilling to go through the growing pains required to get back to the level they already demand to be at. This will probably be Ruben Amorim’s downfall. It will almost certainly be Frank’s.
That is not to say Frank should be immune from criticism. He is failing to put together anything resembling fluent attacking football, the shape of Spurs’ in-possession play lacking the automatisms that would suggest there is a clear plan for how to progress the ball into the penalty area.
His Brentford had very distinctive and recognisable patterns, but almost all of them involved pinpoint counter-attacking moves of the sort Tottenham are not allowed to enact. Most of their opponents sit deeper and expect Spurs to dominate the ball, limiting the value of Frank’s Brentford attacks and - early evidence would suggest - leaving Frank with no idea how to coach in a more proactive manner.
This explains why Spurs have been so much better away from home this season – where opponents are expected to be more progressive – and why Frank’s side look particularly poor against low blocks, hence the 3-0 defeat to a Sean Dyche side on Sunday.
In almost every game Tottenham are flat, lifeless, and no different from the painful final six months under Postecoglou. Worse, they have fewer points after 16 Premier League games (22) than at any point since 2008/09, which means Frank is actually doing worse than his predecessor at this stage. For those stark, headline reasons Frank already looks like a dead man walking.
But managing one of the ‘Big Six’ was always going to be a very steep learning curve for Frank. It is why he needs more time than most - and why he will be given less of it.