We’re going to shock you now: Thomas Frank has some problems at Spurs.
But perhaps the biggest one of all might be one that he is at best tangentially responsible for.
And that problem is the email that dropped into season ticket holders’ inboxes containing the good and exciting news that they could give their friends and family ‘the gift of matchday’ at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
They go on to describe this as the ‘perfect Christmas gift for any Spurs fan’. An absurd lie, but you have to admire the effort.
Because behind the faux excitement and cheery tone of this is a problem that is a growing one for the club that will very, very soon become a potentially terminal one for Frank.
Punters are simply not pouring through the shiny doors of the New White Hart Lane as once they did. However big a smile the club paints on, the fact games against clubs like Borussia Dortmund, Newcastle and Manchester City are all available on ‘guest sale’ is a cause for huge alarm.
That’s games against two huge Premier League teams and the biggest home game of Tottenham’s Champions League group stage, all potentially taking place in front of rows and rows of empty seats.
Football ticket pricing is under the spotlight like never before right now thanks to the World Cup, and it’s fair to say Spurs have received plenty of criticism already this season for their structure, especially for the midweek Champions League games against some relatively low-key opposition.
But this is currently on course to be something else. A flick around the ticketing website at the moment reveals whole vast blocks – almost an entire tier in some places – of available seats for the Dortmund game.
It’s almost moot to consider how much of this is actually Thomas Frank’s fault. We don’t have access to all Tottenham’s ticket-sales data, but we would confidently predict that they could be playing like 1982 Brazil and in the first season at the new ground without Son Heung-min the attendance numbers would nevertheless still go down.
But that sort of thing just won’t matter in the end. Because it’s going to very quickly become Frank’s problem. Whatever other explanations exist outside Frank’s control – and the pricing and Son Ultras are definitely on that list – the narrative will become how little him and his side are doing to entice any fans through the very expensive doors.
The worse and less effective Frank’s football becomes, the harder it will be to avoid him becoming a key figure on the list of factors behind declining attendances.
Even the miserable home form Frank is currently overseeing in the Premier League isn’t entirely his fault but rather an extension of a problem that had become a clear issue long before the end of Ange Postecoglou’s reign.
But the combination of unattractive and ineffective football that has become the norm at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this season means Frank is doing himself absolutely no favours.
The newly hands-on Lewis Family regime appear reluctant to start their time in more conspicuous charge of the club with anything that might give the appearance of a knee-jerk decision. That’s understandable, but the keener the sense becomes that fans are being actively put off by Frankball, the easier it will be for that line of thinking to shift.
They didn’t appoint Frank; that was Daniel Levy’s final act. The new regime retain plausible deniability if they act fast and get his replacement right. Sure, that second bit sounds far easier as a throwaway line on paper than long experience tells us, but still.
Even before considering the financial implications of whole blocks of empty seats at Spurs’ magnificent stadium, it’s the optics of it that will do for Frank.
The new hands at the wheel of this daftest of football clubs don’t want to look rash or like they’re repeating past mistakes, and that’s entirely understandable.