Brentford 0-0 Tottenham
GTECH COMMUNITY STADIUM – It says much about the mood among Tottenham fans that midway through a miserable dirge against Brentford, they were reduced to chanting about a miscellany of random ex-players. The medley featured everyone from Jermain Defoe to Danny Rose – and tellingly, none of the current squad.
“Boring, boring Tottenham.” “We want our money back.” The damning death knells of an increasingly grey, depressing campaign. Thomas Frank, heckled and jeered at the final whistle. Only when he saluted the Brentford supporters did he receive a warm embrace of applause. At the ground where he once was God, there is sympathy and bewilderment at how quickly it is all unravelling for him.
Zero big chances. Out-fought for possession. One corner. Admirably, and presumably knowing what the reaction might be, Frank still made his way to the away end to acknowledge the travelling crowd. It was then that the air turned sour and the gallows humour dried up.
Frank cannot continue like this if the atmosphere does not detoxify fast. It was fan dissent that ultimately did for Nuno Espirito Santo, his substitutions mercilessly booed. By the end of Antonio Conte’s reign, Spurs fans had taken to singing Mauricio Pochettino’s name in the middle of games.
The current incumbent insisted afterwards that “it’s not that we don’t want to play offensive or attacking football… of course the offensive part needs to be better, there’s no two ways about that”.
If he is to salvage anything from this uninspiring season, he needs to be backed in this month’s transfer window.
There is now another £35m knocking about as Brennan Johnson prepares to join Crystal Palace. It only took two minutes for Spurs fans to start serenading the spectre of their departing Europa League hero. Forever immortalised in the image of those dark glasses masking his post-Bilbao bender, Johnson’s goal in the final against Manchester United has earned him a place in north London folklore.
Eight months on, his alma mater drew another hopeless blank. In a head vs heart sense, the Johnson deal makes a lot of sense – he started less than a third of league games under Frank. It does mean, however, that for the third year in a row, the club has sold its top scorer from the previous season, following in the footsteps of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min.
That alone does not explain the ongoing thirst for creativity. Frank started at Brentford with seven defensively inclined players. There was the return of the much protested against Joao Palhinha-Rodrigo Bentancur combination, their first start together since that appalling north London derby defeat.
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Far too often, Spurs simply do not look like scoring. And in the quiet of another pedestrian outing, it was easy to recall why the sight of Johnson loitering around the far post will be so sorely missed. It was never about the manner of his goals, but their significance.
Aa they search for a replacement who can challenge Mohammed Kudus for his spot, there are fears something of a “Tottenham tax” will come attached to creative players in the market, given the urgent need. RB Leipzig’s Yan Diomande is one such target but he is being monitored by a number of clubs and the Bundesliga outfit are holding out for more than £60m. That is a sizable fee for a 19-year-old unproven in the Premier League.
Frank is also reluctant to overload his squad when Dejan Kulusevski, Dominic Solanke and James Maddison would all be first choice upon their return from injury. The other obvious source of succour is the academy – here, Luca Williams-Barnett, its brightest current prospect, was not even named on the bench. Two goalkeepers were. Williams-Barnett reacted to that decision with a cryptic Instagram post as he watched along unhappily; at least he will not have been alone in that.