Football365

Top scorer Micky van de Ven papered over the blatant cracks at Tottenham Hotspur by netting a remarkable goal of the season contender vs FC Copenhagen.

Thomas Frank had his first severe low as Spurs head coach on Saturday as his side were on the end of a rare 1-0 thumping, having recorded their second-lowest ever xG (0.1) in a Premier League match.

In the aftermath of this shambolic Tottenham display, justified pitchforks were being directed at Frank and his “League Two team” as their current sixth-place standing in the Premier League does not tell the whole story amid their woes at home and alarming lack of a goal threat.

Therefore, Spurs and Frank are fortunate that they had the simplest of opportunities to earn their first home win since their September 24 victory over League One side Doncaster Rovers on Tuesday, with visitors FC Copenhagen yet to beat an English side away.

The north London outfit’s misfiring attackers also had the chance to build confidence against charitable opponents, as Copenhagen had conceded two or more goals in their last five Champions League games and 14 overall.

And Copenhagen’s fragility was evident as Tottenham took the lead around the 20-minute mark.

READ: Arsenal lose, United beat Spurs, City beat Liverpool: Five things to mitigate the worst interlull ever

Spurs made a bright opening to the game as they penned Copenhagen in their half, with the away side picked off as soon as they committed men forward.

Classy Rodrigo Bentancur collected a loose pass and laid it off to summer signing Xavi Simons, who sent Brennan Johnson running with a lofted through ball. Goalkeeper Dominik Kotarski compounded the initial error by brainlessly rushing out of his area only to be rounded by the Spurs winger, who did well to convert into an open goal from a tight angle.

This gift afforded Tottenham the perfect platform to kick on and build a commanding lead, but they failed to take advantage before the break.

Simons, who has been likened to Antony, has been given a kicking in recent days, but he was at the heart of all of Tottenham’s good moments and should have had a second assist following a superb interchange with Wilson Odobert, though Randal Kolo Muani dragged his shot wide from close range.

Kolo Muani had an even better chance to get off the mark for Spurs seconds before the break, with Simons’ expert delivery setting up a free header inside ten yards that was sent over the bar by the out-of-form striker.

These lapses would have been punished had Tottenham been facing stronger opposition, as the hosts were slack in defence and had the same number of shots on target (two) in the opening half despite having 67% possession.

But just as Spurs started to risk the wrath of their frustrated supporters, Kotarski gave them another helping as they doubled their lead.

The calamitous goalkeeper poorly misjudged a loose long ball from Pedro Porro as Kolo Muani beat him to the punch before showing good composure to assist Odobert to score from close range. It didn’t make up for his earlier misses, but it was a quality piece of play from the striker who sorely needs a goal.

Minutes later, Johnson’s red card for a rash and needless sliding challenge threatened to set up a particularly Spursy end to this match, but their two centre-backs, who happen to be among their most dangerous attackers, ensured that didn’t happen.

Firstly, top scorer Micky van de Ven netted his sixth goal of the 2025/26 campaign, with this one of the most remarkable you will see all season. Bonus points to anyone who hears the X-rated off-mic comment from a rather startled Spurs fan after the road runner clinically converted…

Naturally, this encouraged fellow centre-back Cristian Romero to give himself a nosebleed as almost right from kick-off, the Tottenham captain advanced into the penalty area and assisted Joao Palhinha for his fourth goal of the season.

Richarlison struck the bar with a penalty in stoppage time to prevent Spurs from hitting Copenhagen for five, but this is still the biggest win for Frank at his new club.

It provides Frank and his team with a much-needed injection of optimism as they got the result they were craving, though Van de Ven’s moment of individual brilliance does somewhat paper over the cracks that would have been exposed had they faced an adequate opponent.

Barring an impressive performance from Simons, the same issues remain as Kolo Muani’s failings in front of goal and their overall lack of cohesion justify the reported internal ‘desperation’ for ‘new attackers in January’, so Spurs cannot get carried away by this display unless they answer questions against Manchester United at the weekend.

Thomas Frank is only problem 137 on a long list at Spurs; he is pretty much absolved of any blame for that mess of a squad.

We also have thoughts on Šeško v Gyokeres as we build towards the Champions League. Watch some football and then mail theeditor@football365.com

Absolving Thomas Frank of most Spurs blame

This is a Tottenham team unlike any for a very long time. I’m going back to maybe 2008 when Berbatov and Keane left, leaving Spurs with no talisman. Ledley King, much loved as he is, wasn’t that man because, well the lack of knee mostly.

Since that time Spurs can call upon an array of some of the world’s best players; Modric, Bale, Kane and Son being the most glaringly obvious, but equally so Vertonghen and Alderwiereld. Walker and Eriksen. Dembele and, for three season, an outrageous Dele Alli.

Now though there is nobody who’d you say with confidence will grab the game by the scruff of the neck, and through sheer will, make the other ten players a foot taller, a mile faster…there simply is no one.

Palhinha is a very good player at what he does. But that is who he is. No more than that. Bergvall, Sarr and Kudus all have qualities but the drop-off from there is astonishing. And not without spending a serious wedge on the dross too.

Injuries to Solanke (not mentioned in the Topical Top Ten despite his loss being huge), Maddison and Kulusevski are all well and done, that is until it’s flagged that the latter two were always going to be long-term absentees, and I dare say won’t return to anything like their old selves. Solanke has suffered various injuries since joining, and the club left an operation for over a month so he’s now been unavailable for at least four weeks longer.

Frank is far from blameless but this mess of a squad predates his arrival by some distance.

Dan Mallerman

…I’m not sure your article on Frank being ‘small time’ for Spurs is entirely fair. It’s the club who is small and has been for ages.

It’s an Augean Stables task to wash out the two-bobness out of Spurs. We’ve had decades of ‘Meh’, mediocrity, punts and ‘will this do’. And worse we’ve overpaid for every player to do it.

My faves:

Selling Elvis and buying the Dave Clark Five.

Spending 21 million, Erik Lamela and Bryan Gil to sign Bryan Gil.

Having at one time nearly 250 million of players out on loan.

Breaking our transfer record for Sissoko an incredibly limited midfielder who was desperate to sign for Arsenal. On, obviously 10 minutes to midnight, deadline day.

Haggling over Berbatov for months to gain an extra 2 million and replacing him on deadline day with no-one.

Selling Robbie Keane as well leaving coach Ramos 40 goals short at the start of the season.

Buying a beloved coach who had got us to a CL final and nearly won the league who was publicly begging for players to refresh his squad no-one for 18 months.

Acquiring Louis Saha and Ryan Nelsen to boost our title tilt..

Paying ANYTHING for Rasiak.

Renewing Timo Werner’s loan

Low-balling players like Grealish, Eze, Trossard etc so they would rather gouge their own eyes out than sign for us

Making Tel’s loan permanent despite precisely ZERO evidence he’s actually a footballer.

Ben Davies was signed as our back up left/centre back a decade ago and still is.

Worst of all having a generational player, effectively free, and never buying anyone of remotely comparable quality in a decade to go with him. (Yes we love Son, but he didn’t get off to a flyer)

And we’re left with going from a true premiership winning calibre team in the Toby/Hugo/Kane/Son days to a rag-tag mess of bodies that don’t add up to anything, apart from a stack of burning cash. Levy would never have entertained buying mediocre beer-pumps or go-karts, so why is it OK for players?

All this ‘penny pinching’ came at an extortionate rate. Tel, Oderbert, Solanke, Richarlison and Johnson is the thick end a quarter of a billion quid of bang average.

The Lewises I wish them luck, if they are ambitious I hope they have got an army of those specialist crime scene cleaners and a lot of wire-brushes to scrub the smallness out of us. When the stench of his Levy is finally gone, we hopefully realise that the metric of sport is winning, not your fixtures and fittings.

So ultimately, I think Frank deserves a chance. When the club can gain some ambition and coherence, we’ll know where we’re at. And besides he’s only problem 137 on a long list.

As ever a saga then. But one night, we had Johnson’s shin, an even worse opponent and Mickey was a teleporting ninja. So, as ever, we live in hope.

Dom, Florence

READ: Arsenal lose, United beat Spurs, City beat Liverpool: Five things to mitigate the worst interlull ever

Newcastle shell-shocked

Hi James, the reason is Celtic pumped them so badly in Glasgow during pre-season that the whole squad just haven’t gotten over it yet. Even Isak who must have seen it coming and fucked off back down the road before kick off is still rattled by it.

Finlay x

On Šeško v Gyokeres: Three months in

Twas the season of seasonal rumours, the murmurings of the transfer window sounding like the chirping of a Stock Exchange as the Šeško vs Gyökeres debate raged on in Arsenal Fan Pages across mediums all and sundry…

Three months on, and it is now plainly obvious that Don Berta and his fledglings saw what we now know as fact, something that fans could not see, basing their opinio-facts on hastily compiled youtube videos by pre-pubescent teens with a penchant for direccione.

Make no mistake about it, Šeško is and will remain a tremendous prospect, and may the kid from the Balkans make a success of his transfer still, but these three months have shown that the two players are vastly different in their mental profiles. A few factoids stand out:

– Šeško in characteristic Balkan bravado claiming his teammates believe he is better than Haaland

– Šeško turning up to training in the fanciest of jeeps

– Šeško dropping his shoulders the first few matches he was thrown into, struck by lightning twice, first at the physicality and competitiveness of old Barclays, and the disjointed nature of United’s game

On the other hand, Gyökeres, already having gone through earlier spells across different leagues being branded a failure at different points in his career, putting his head down and putting in the hard graft day in day out in subterranean prisons and pits, being jeered at by the dregs of society, not letting any criticism get to him. Exemplified by his celebration of the mask, described by him on Instagram by the iconic dialogue by Bane in The Dark Knight Rises: “nobody cared who i was until I put on the mask”.

As Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes in The Black Swan, if you meet two doctors in the same prestigious hospital, a good-looking chap nicely dressed with degrees from Harvard, and another who looks like a veritable butcher collecting his degrees from places with questionable credentials, always go for the latter, as the proverbial butcher has overcome many more obstacles than the Harvard graduate, without the benefit good looks accord, to get to where he has. As Nietzsche once said, “How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft.”

Therefore, anyone who has been told they will never amount to nothing, that their failures define them, and that they are not good enough, the redemptive arc of Gyökeres is one story we all want to believe in so hard that we may make it come true through sheer force of volition itself! And it is these arcs that make us love football, the only true spiritual reprieve of the modern world, akin to Greek drama and tragedy, replete with its characters honourable who fall from grace, and imperfect heroes who overcome all odds to become immortal gods.

Long live the Barclays!

Shahzad, Pakistani exiled in Le Balkans (trying to bring some class back to the mailbox)

Annoying football phrases

In answer to Steven McBain’s email, I offer the below:

Spraying passes around like the quarterback

Breaking the lines

And absolutely anything to do with transitions.

C, The South

…I can assure you as an avid reader of this website, the most annoying phrase is:

“Mick Brown, who remains well connected in the Premier League”

We’re worried, okay? We’re worried that we might be about to embark upon the dreariest and dullest interlull of all time.

It is, frankly, a perfect storm of interlull dullness, as you can see from our quick Interlull Dullness Survey here.

Is it the November international break, the third in quick succession and thus by definition always the hardest to drag yourself through? Yes.

Are England’s games entirely meaningless? You bet your Anglo-centric arse and anus England’s games are entirely meaningless.

Are any big clubs currently in the very deepest depths of crisis and/or plausibly about to sack their manager? They are not.

Have the press already gleefully signalled their intention to make this The Bellingham Interlull at all costs and in all circumstances no matter what happens? Yes, with massive great knobs on.

It’s going to be just awful. There is probably nothing that can be done to save it or us, but here are five things that we desperately now want to happen over the days ahead in the forlorn hope it might at least mitigate the barrenness of the wasteland stretching out before us.

Tottenham losing to Man United

Famously something that Tottenham don’t really do anymore, their four wins against Manchester United last season even going so far as the truly absurd lengths of delivering a trophy to N17, but a lot has changed in the weeks and months since That Night in Bilbao.

Man United’s recovery from deepest and darkest crisis still hasn’t been enough to get that lad a haircut after the 2-2 draw at Forest, but it’s still delivered 10 points in four games and that will very much do. And Liverpool’s win over Villa last week has taken the edge off slightly at Anfield.

It’s going to be hard to concoct a full crisis for any of the Big Six now, but our best bet might be Thomas Frank over at Spurs after the most small-time ‘big club’ home performance in living memory against Chelsea. The initial plan appeared to be to play for a goalless draw and then, when that didn’t work out, play for a 1-0 defeat. It’s a mad plan for Spurs at home to absolutely anyone, but especially a Chelsea side that absolutely isn’t all that having lost to Sunderland the previous weekend and then nearly contrived all sorts of unpleasantness at desperate Wolves in the Carabao.

Frank absolutely needs a result and a performance against United to silence some of the increasingly loud doubts and also at least start to turn around that laughably poor home form, albeit only some of which – but an inevitably increasing amount – has come on his watch.

Lose to United for the first time in over three years, and Spurs will drop back into mid-table where, frankly, their performances deserve to have them. Do it in anything like a repeat of the drab, ambition-free nature of the Chelsea defeat and suddenly there’s a story to fill the void and an awkward couple of weeks for Frank before the blessed relief of another away game. Which is at Arsenal. Oof.

Man City beating Liverpool, heavily if possible

Not sure City can be plunged easily back into crisis, but we’re damn sure Liverpool can. Nothing about the way a team that has conceded 14 goals already in the Premier League this season has gone about their defending suggests they are in any way ready to cope with Erling Haaland in his current preposterous pomp, so there really is every chance for a silly high-scoring game here that does much to sustain us through the days and nights that follow.

Is a wild 5-3 in the last Premier League game for 13 days really too much to ask? We say no. No it is not. More defensive calamity. More Virgil van Dijk looking daggers at Milos Kerkez and wondering how it’s all come to this. More Haaland doing the robot.

While we’re being greedy, we’ll take a Salah hat-trick at the other end as well, please. We just want a Super Sunday headliner that legitimately has enough going on to fill the next three days’ discourse. We won’t ask for anything ever again. Not until March anyway.

We will grudgingly accept the reverse outcome – as we would with Spurs-United, to be fair – if it’s large and compelling and above all funny enough. But it really does feel like Spurs and Liverpool are our best crisis bets this weekend, the sheer futility of trying to predict what Chelsea might get up to having now been firmly established.

READ: Arsenal top, Wolves bottom, Liverpool being sh*t and other inevitable things we should have seen coming

Arsenal coming unstuck at Sunderland

Perhaps the greediest and unlikeliest request of the lot, but the less ridiculously we are able to spend the interlull kidding ourselves on that there might still be a title race, the better.

It’s another factor, really, in why City beating Liverpool is better than the other way round, because City are currently that precious one point closer to the runaway leaders, which means any result other than a City win just means that Arsenal lead getting bigger again.

Unless, and hear us out because it is technically possible, Arsenal don’t beat Sunderland. These lads are fourth in the league, after all. We really shouldn’t just be assuming Arsenal definitely beat them, even though assuming Arsenal definitely beat pretty much anyone feels entirely fair at this point what with the twin superpowers of never facing any shots on their own goal and always scoring at least one p*ss-boiling set-piece at the other.

But maybe the chaotic and unexpected energy of Sunderland is just the thing to derail the serene Mikel Arteta machine. And for our own something-to-fill-the-void requirements, the greater the prominence of Granit Xhaka in any such spanner-in-the-works behaviour the better.

Someone, anyone, losing heavily in a six-pointer

The fixture computer has deigned in her infinite wisdom and great mischievous magnificence to grant us not just two Big Six encounters upon this sacred final weekend before another bastard break, but also at least two relegation six-pointers. We thank her and make offerings to her glory.

You can chuck in Everton v Fulham if you want to make mischief, but it’s unlikely that anything there can really shift the needle enough. The big ones are West Ham v Burnley on Saturday afternoon, and Nottingham Forest v Leeds on Sunday.

We don’t care who steps up to heroically take the fall, we just need one of you four to get absolutely battered to keep the Sack Race nice and lively for the next 10 days. Please and thank you.

Thomas Tuchel picking Jude Bellingham

We’ve thought long and hard about this one. In truth, there is absolutely no universe now where this international break isn’t Bellingham Week. No timeline where Mediawatch isn’t sighing and repeating itself from the last international break, which was literally five f*cking minutes ago.

There’s no avoiding it, all we can hope to do is to mitigate the extent of the nonsense. And we reckon the best chance is if Tuchel does pick him this time.

Because if Bellingham is in the squad, at least the Bellingham Week stories that follow will have to make some kind of superficial nod to real-world events that actually happen rather than the press pack having completely free rein to just make up the narrative.

Which brings us to the further mitigating requirements required here to try and damp down the crazy. First, Bellingham will need to play some part in the games and be quite good but not too good. If he’s conspicuously good or conspicuously bad, it’s all too easy for it to naturally become the dominant narrative anyway. Bellingham isn’t really a footballer who does ‘quietly effective’ but we are really going to need him to try.

And if that can happen with the barest minimum of any accompanying behaviour that can be spun as Billy Big Bollocks antics, again it would really help.

Obviously, there’s no actual proper solution here. Anything he does (or doesn’t do) will still constitute a display of true colours or the speaking of volumes but the more egregiously the media has to reach for it the better. Don’t be giving them any ammunition.

Tottenham Hotspur looked like a “League Two team” against Chelsea on Saturday, according to Jamie Carragher, who says he worries for Thomas Frank.

Frank has been heavily criticised for his side’s performance as Tottenham fell to a third home defeat in five Premier League games this season.

Tottenham in the 2025/26 Premier League: Key statistics

Average 1.01 xG per 90 minutes

The Londoners are bizarrely the best away team in the Premier League this campaign but have been miserable at home, winning only one of their five games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

This leaves Spurs 17th in the Premier League home table, the same position they finished in the overall table under Ange Postecoglou last season.

It’s impossible to pinpoint one exact reason why Frank’s side have struggled at home, and when analysing their form, Liverpool legend Carragher said the former Brentford manager will probably feel much of the criticism is unwarranted.

He said on Monday Night Football: “He may be looking at it and thinking, I don’t know where all this is coming from. ‘We’re doing really well in the league; this team finished 17th last season. We went into the weekend as the highest scorers in the league.’”

Spurs ‘like a League Two team’ against Chelsea – Carragher

Carragher then compared Frank to other managers who made the step up from smaller Premier League clubs to one of the big boys.

Managers like Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce and Nuno Espirito Santo struggled after making that leap with a pragmatic approach, and there’s a fear Frank could experience the same fate.

“A big problem for Thomas Frank and other managers who make that jump from a smaller team in the Premier League to one of the big boys, especially when they’re seen as pragmatic coaches, is actually bringing the football to these teams,” Carragher added.

“He might look at it and think there’s not a lot wrong, but when you watch the game at the weekend and what the supporters have seen, that was like watching a League Two team against a Premier League team in the FA Cup.”

Carragher said the difference in quality was clear for all to see.

“When you look at the stats — and people who watched the game on Saturday Night Football — there was a huge contrast with the ball, and that is the biggest challenge for any coach making that jump from a team in the bottom half of the Premier League to one of the big boys.”

Do Spurs lack progressive midfielders?

Managers rarely want to move away from the philosophy that earned them their big job, but that pragmatic style isn’t what supporters of clubs like Tottenham or Liverpool expect to see.

There was too much long-ball football from “League Two Spurs” against Chelsea, with Frank’s side lacking both “courage” and a deep-lying midfielder capable of playing passes between the lines.

It’s hard to argue with the latter point. Joao Palhinha is a destroyer, not a playmaker, Rodrigo Bentancur is more box-to-box and physical over technical, and Pape Matar Sarr is a superb ball carrier, but not someone you’d expect to split defences open or play line-breaking passes.

“These three midfield players, that is not a midfield to progress the ball through the lines and get it to who’s essentially your number 10. That’s not right,” Carragher said.

READ: ‘Hasn’t got the ability’: Carragher blasts Spurs man ‘lacking quality’ and ‘not capable’

“But what I didn’t like again was the lack of courage. I’ve seen players do that all my life, they mark themselves so they don’t have to get the ball. They can say, ‘I couldn’t get it, I was marked.’

“You see Bentancur telling the goalkeeper to take his time, relax. No, he should be moving and getting into position to get on the ball.

“Then the ball goes long again. This worried me watching; it wasn’t difficult to get out. It wasn’t a full man-to-man press from Chelsea, and the ball just goes long. You see all the players pointing, knock it long, knock it long.

“Now I’m talking about a lack of courage, about helping your teammate. Sarr is running with the ball and he’s in trouble. He needs help. The two central midfielders and [Micky] van de Ven have got to read the game, knowing he’s going to need help or he’s going to lose the ball.”

Carragher then expanded on Spurs’ style under Frank, and why he’s concerned.

“I tell you, the manager who can coach this is [Enzo] Maresca — and we’ve seen a lot of this from Chelsea.

“When you talk about rotations, that’s what the managers at the top level can really do. Pep Guardiola, Arne Slot, Mikel Arteta, Maresca — they can coach the rotations and movements. So is it a question of the manager or the players? That would be a worry.

“For Thomas Frank, going forward, when you think of pragmatic managers in the past who’ve made that jump from a smaller club to a bigger club, that has always been the problem — can they coach the rotations and build-up play to break the lines?

“I worry for Thomas Frank, who, by the way, is still off to a really good start. But in terms of what the bigger club wants, I look at Sam Allardyce going to Newcastle — Premier League games at his new club dropped to 21, because of the style and the talk about attacking football.

“It’s also about the players they bring in. We’re talking about Thomas Frank bringing in Palhinha. David Moyes brought in [Marouane] Fellaini — again, not quite the player you’d expect.

“Fans just wouldn’t accept the style of football. So I think for Thomas Frank, he’s got to be mindful of that. Not every manager is great at everything. We know he’s great at set-pieces and organisation.

“We’ve had him on this show talking about Brentford and how he has to move the needle going forward in terms of their football. If he’s not the man to coach that, maybe he needs someone on his staff who can, because Spurs will need to implement that going forward if he’s going to be a success.

“Perhaps just 10 games into his spell at Spurs, he’s confident he’ll be able to find that home form and build that connection with the fans, which has been missing.”

Will Thomas Frank last at Spurs?

Winning at home against Wolves, or at least being competitive in a London derby, should be bread and butter for a Spurs manager, and it’s vitally important that Frank finds a solution.

The foundations are clearly there away from home, so once Frank and his coaching team discover the winning formula at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, confidence will grow that he is the man for the job, capable of making the jump from Brentford to a Big Six club.

Answering the question ‘Will Thomas Frank last at Spurs?’ is pure guesswork at this early stage. What we do know is that he’s an excellent coach, with superb man-management skills and a calm, assured presence in front of the media.

Transferring those qualities onto the pitch is another story. There’s reason for optimism, but Carragher is right, Spurs lack a No.6 or No.8 capable of dictating games and playing those decisive, line-breaking passes.

It’s also worth remembering that James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski have been injured all season, while £51million summer signing Xavi Simons has yet to make a real impact in a Spurs shirt.

Copenhagen at home in the Champions League is a must-win game for Spurs, and victory in that competition would be another clear sign that Frank can make the step up.

It’s a step that Nuno Espirito Santo also took when he left Wolves for Spurs in 2021, but he lasted less than four months, despite winning Premier League Manager of the Month for August.

Frank will hope to avoid the same fate as the former Wolves boss.

Trent Alexander-Arnold returns to Anfield in white, and Liverpool are trying to convince everyone they’re fine again after finally finding some form against the stooges of Aston Villa.

There’s no shortage of narratives this midweek, with Alexander-Arnold’s Real Madrid back at Anfield in the Champions League and holders Paris Saint-Germain hosting their biggest threat to the throne, Bayern Munich.

Tottenham Hotspur have a huge clash with Copenhagen after being booed off against Chelsea, while Rangers and Coventry City are both looking to bounce back from weekend defeats.

Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa are all in action too, but somehow, they’ve all missed the cut for a jam-packed Big Midweek.

Player to watch: Trent Alexander-Arnold

There’s no guarantee that Trent Alexander-Arnold will start for Real Madrid at Anfield to face Liverpool, but there’s a chance nonetheless. That’s enough for us.

It’s the biggest story of the week by far, with Alexander-Arnold viewed as a traitor by many Liverpool fans after he denied them a fee by walking to Madrid on a free transfer at the end of his contract.

There’s not much to say about the England right-back that hasn’t already been said, but the prospect of him actually lacing up to face Liverpool at Anfield is incredible. He doesn’t deserve the boos he’ll inevitably receive, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him struggle under the daunting Anfield lights as an opposition player.

There were even Liverpool fans who revelled in his latest injury setback — which occurred in the opening minutes of Trent’s Champions League debut for Los Blancos against Marseille, when he pulled up with a sore hamstring. Thankfully, Alexander-Arnold has recovered just in time to be considered for selection against his former club.

It’s not Alexander-Arnold’s fitness that’s the concern, it’s whether or not he should even start. The Champions League is an opportunity for Xabi Alonso to rotate, and after being an unused substitute in Madrid’s last two La Liga games, there could be a change at right-back, with Federico Valverde potentially moving back into midfield after helping his side win 4-0 against Valencia.

Trent starting against Marseille suggests Alonso wants him to play in Europe, and while he is paid a lot of money to do a job against anyone, the Madrid boss might consider keeping him out of the firing line. Then again, Alonso will want his best players on the pitch.

We just know it’s going to be juicy. And that’s all we’re here for.

And you can watch it for free...

Team to watch: Liverpool

Speaking of Liverpool and their match against Real Madrid…

Bouncing back against Aston Villa was crucial for Arne Slot and his players after losing six of their last seven games, and doing so while keeping their third clean sheet of the season sets them up perfectly for an extremely difficult match on Tuesday.

Mohamed Salah has now scored in consecutive Premier League games and Ryan Gravenberch is back in the side, which cannot be underestimated. His calming presence in midfield goes a long way to making Slot’s Liverpool look much more composed and calm, in and out of possession.

He has to start against Madrid, and it wouldn’t be a shock if Slot’s side are unchanged. Despite rotation being important, momentum and confidence are key at this stage. Liverpool need to prove they are still contenders for the Premier League and Champions League, and are through the other side of a historically poor run of form.

It’s a huge week in general for the Premier League champions, who face Manchester City on Sunday. It’s not a season-defining week for the Reds, but their results will provide a huge indication of where they’ll be at the end of 2025/26.

Liverpool vs Real Madrid predictions: Liverpool’s revival will be tested by Europe’s form team

Game to watch: Paris Saint-Germain v Bayern Munich

It’s just a belting tie, isn’t it? It’s definitely the best thing about the transformation from a group to a league phase.

The rematch of the 2020 lockdown final is now a clash between the two favourites for the 2025/26 title, and it’s not hard to see why. Bayern are currently nine from nine in the Bundesliga and look as dominant as ever with Harry Kane flying under Vincent Kompany, while PSG are unsurprisingly top of Ligue 1. Farmers’ leagues be farming, folks.

The fixture really does all the talking for us, but similar to Liverpool and their week ahead, the result here could say a lot about both teams — more about the winner, anyway. Losing won’t make either of them pretenders instead of contenders, especially when Arsenal brushed PSG aside in last season’s league phase before losing to the eventual winners in the semi-final.

You’d probably fancy Bayern to win if they were at home, but in Paris? Who knows? Let’s just hope for an entertaining 90 minutes. With the lack of jeopardy involved for these two European Goliaths, it’s hard to imagine it being anything but entertaining.

Manager to watch: Thomas Frank

Questions are being asked about Thomas Frank’s Tottenham Hotspur after a limp home defeat to London rivals Chelsea on Saturday, with a clip of Djed Spence and Micky van de Ven snubbing their manager after the full-time whistle surfacing on social media. It wasn’t a good look and sent out all the wrong messages, even if it was just two footballers being p*ssed off after losing an important game.

It’s already water under the bridge, which is fantastic news ahead of a very winnable Champions League match for Spurs against FC Copenhagen.

Spurs, in truth, were handed an absolute beauty of a league phase schedule, but edging past Villarreal at home before lucky draws at Bodo/Glimt and AS Monaco is a very underwhelming — albeit unbeaten — start.

Pressure is on Frank to make Spurs look like an exciting team, and working out how to get the best out of £51million summer signing Xavi Simons would go a long way. There’s a plethora of attacking talent in Frank’s squad, but we’re yet to really see anything to prove that statement.

Not only that, but Frank really needs to sort out his side’s confusingly abysmal home form. Sixth in the Premier League after 10 games under the former Brentford boss is pretty good going, but winning at home to Wolves should be your bread and butter.

Spurs are 17th in the home table this season with one win from five games, but are top with four wins and one draw when playing away from their beautiful stadium.

Copenhagen are obviously a good side — good enough to be in the Champions League — but they are the Wolves of the competition. Spurs will be botching the most favourable league phase draw imaginable if they don’t make light work of the Danes on Tuesday.

READ: Thomas Frank is small-timing the Spurs job and that could kill him

EFL game to watch: Coventry v Sheffield United

Knowing the Championship, Coventry’s first defeat of the season will probably be followed by an awful run of form, with questions asked of Frank Lampard only weeks after he was the best thing since sliced bread. It’s just how things work in that crazy league.

Coventry were unbeaten after 12 Championship games, which is an almighty impressive start to the season, but it’s a relentless division and even a home match against a shocking Sheffield United side feels like a potential banana skin. It was only Wrexham’s fourth league win of the season and came via a Kieffer Moore hat-trick from 1-0 down. Seriously, anything is possible.

The Blades can also earn their fourth win of the campaign on Tuesday evening but are on a two-match losing run after winning three from five following Chris Wilder’s return. Looking at this game the other way, they are shipping goals for fun and Coventry have scored a frankly ridiculous 36 goals already this term, so it could be a mauling as Coventry bounce back from Friday evening’s drama at the Racecourse Ground.

Europa game to watch: Rangers v AS Roma

Rangers have been snuck in, so this will be short and sweet.

Roma have been very, very good this season. Atalanta legend Gian Piero Gasperini has come in and steadied the ship with some brilliant results, with Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at second-place AC Milan only their third from 10 in Serie A.

Gasperini’s side take on a dejected Rangers team at Ibrox in the Europa League, where they haven’t found much success — winning one and losing two. That’s not as bad as rock-bottom Rangers, whose first game under new boss Danny Rohl was a 4-0 battering at Brann.

Despite that heavy defeat to Brann and losing 3-1 after extra time against Celtic in the semi-final of the League Cup, this is Rohl’s biggest test yet. There’s nothing like a rocking Ibrox on a Thursday night, if the supporters are behind the man in the dugout, which they are…for now.

We should see a comfortable night for Roma or one of those special Ibrox nights. Either way, it’s must-watch football.

Jamie Carragher believes Joao Palhinha “hasn’t got the quality” to play for Tottenham Hotspur.

Tottenham boss Thomas Frank knew exactly what he was getting when he signed Palhinha from Bayern Munich: a midfield destroyer, not a playmaker.

Joao Palhinha: 2025/26 Premier League statistics

Palhinha was overlooked by the Premier League elite during his impressive time at Sporting and later at Fulham, until Bayern Munich bought him for around £45m after two seasons in England.

It didn’t work out for the Portuguese midfielder in Germany, but he did win a Bundesliga title in his only season at Bayern.

Spurs, searching for more midfield depth and steel, landed him on loan in August. All things considered, Palhinha has done well in his first few months at Tottenham, leading the Premier League for tackles — 12 ahead of Tyrick Mitchell — but his long-standing risk factor at bigger clubs has come to the fore.

READ: Thomas Frank is small-timing the Spurs job and that could kill him

Thomas Frank knows Joao Palhinha ‘lacks quality’

Palhinha isn’t the same type of No.6 as Martin Zubimendi, Rodri, or Ryan Gravenberch. Spurs head coach Frank was aware of this when he signed him from Bayern, as highlighted by the statistics above.

He is industrious, physical, and strong in the tackle, traits Frank has always valued in his midfielders. That style works at Brentford, but maybe not at Spurs.

Palhinha is a good player, and it will be interesting to see if he can grow into a more possession-oriented role in Frank’s midfield. But Liverpool legend Carragher clearly isn’t convinced.

Carragher analysed Spurs’ defeat to Chelsea on Monday Night Football and highlighted Palhinha’s performance, mainly his lack of “ability” and “quality” to play forward passes and break lines to find players like Xavi Simons, Lucas Bergvall, and Mohammed Kudus.

“We spoke about courage; now we can talk about quality. Palhinha hasn’t got the quality,” Carragher said.

“For a player playing for Tottenham in central midfield, for me, that’s a pass you have to be able to make. He can’t make it.

“So even though I’m being critical of it, saying he hasn’t quite got the ability, he’s actually done okay for Tottenham in terms of his job, but they go back, listen to the boos.

“The only reason he does a clever turn on the ball is because of the boos. Again, Palhinha is on the ball, five touches because he hasn’t got the confidence or the ability.

“Danso now takes seven touches. They’re not good enough on the ball, and you now get a situation where Porro is getting the ball, getting closed down, and Xavi Simons is in that position there.

“What you’ve got is you’ve got a lack of courage and confidence from certain players, but you’ve also got a lack of ability of certain players.”

Asked by host David Jones if Spurs’ biggest problem is the lack of a midfield player capable of breaking lines, Carragher responded: “That’s the problem. And for me, for Thomas Frank, that is something he’s got to grow.

“A worry would be, one of his first signings is Palhinha. Now he is not capable, I don’t think, of doing this (line-breaking passes).

“There was a reason why players and teams in the Premier League didn’t buy him from Fulham, and there’s a reason why Bayern Munich bought him and didn’t play him, so that would be a worry.

“But for Thomas Frank, going forward, when you think of pragmatic managers in the past who’ve made that jump from a smaller club to a bigger club, that has always been the problem in terms of, can they coach the rotations, the build-up play, to break the lines?”

A lip reader has revealed that Tottenham star Djed Spence said to Spurs boss Thomas Frank as he walked off the pitch after losing to Chelsea.

The north London outfit were defeated 1-0 at home to the Blues with the visitors unlucky not to beat Tottenham by a bigger margin in the end.

Spurs looked toothless throughout as they struggled to create any good chances but Chelsea remain below them in the Premier League table on goal difference.

One of the major talking points in the aftermath of the result was Frank being snubbed by Tottenham stars Spence and Micky van de Ven at the final whistle.

As they were making their way off the pitch both players seemed to refuse a handshake and a request from Frank to thank fans, as the Tottenham boss gave them an angry stare as they headed towards the tunnel.

When asked about the incident in the post-match press conference, Frank said: “All the players are of course frustrated. They would like to do well, they would like to win, they would like to perform well, so I understand that.

READ: Simons gets Sancho’d in ‘ultimate humiliation’ as Spurs cannot ‘let it all work out’ for Eze rival

“I think it is about which is difficult to be consistent in good times and in bad times. That is why I went around to the fans as I did. It is more fun when we win, I can tell you that.”

And now the Daily Mail has been in touch with an expert lip reader, who has managed to work out what Spence said to Frank on his way off the pitch.

Lip reader Jeremy Freeman has claimed that Spence said to Frank as the Tottenham boss came towards him: “I ain’t doing it… go away.”

The Spurs right-back is also understood to have said “leave me…off” during the moments where he refused his manager’s advances for a handshake.

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👉 Poyet claims Tottenham were ‘confused’ versus Chelsea as he reacts to Spence, Van der Ven incident

Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards branded Spence and Van de Ven a “disgrace” for “disrespecting the manager” after the full-time whistle.

Richards said on The Rest Is Football podcast: “Djed Spence and [Micky] Van de Ven… I listened to a bit of an interview with Thomas Frank, and he sort of played it down.

“Well, you would — it’s important. He is a guy to play it down, yes, agreed.

“But if they’re disrespecting the manager like that, it’s an absolute disgrace. And if they did, I wouldn’t even play him in the next game.

“I really wouldn’t, because Thomas Frank’s not the sort of person who causes confrontations. So that would just be a lack of respect. But yeah, it’s strange coming from Van de Ven especially.”

Tottenham remain one of football’s biggest absurdities but few things are more curious about Spurs than their utterly wretched home form.

Their 1-0 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday evening prompted dissent from the home supporters at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which would have been understandable if such a wretched performance had come in isolation.

But Spurs being woeful at home is nothing new. It is part of a pattern stretching back before Thomas Frank’s arrival, but solving the problem has become the manager’s biggest priority.

Tottenham have not won at home in the Premier League since Frank’s first match in charge on the opening day when Burnley were beaten 3-0.

Since then, Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Chelsea have all won in north London, while Spurs needed a late leveller to deprive Wolves a first win they are still searching for.

The scale of the problem is laid bare in the Premier League home table…

It would be less puzzling and perhaps even less infuriating if Tottenham were just a terrible football team. But they aren’t.

Away from home, they are good. Actually, this season, they are the pride of the Premier League on the road.

They have won four out of five, drawing the other, scoring an average of 2.4 goals per game while conceding only three in total.

This isn’t just a Frank problem. Throughout 2025, watching Spurs at home has been a miserable experience.

Of the 17 ever-present Premier League sides this year, no one has a worse home record. Even West Ham fans have had more to cheer in the s**hole they sold their soul for. Sunderland are one point behind having played 10 games fewer.

Premier League tables: All-time table | Possession table | Open-play goals

Go back a little further, 12 months from today when they beat Aston Villa at home. Since then, Spurs have won only four out of 20 Premier League matches, taking 16 of a possible 60 points at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Is the new-ish arena just too plush?

Spurs’ stadium looks fantastic and it is one of the very best arenas in Europe for anyone visiting. Which, evidently, includes players as well as punters.

There is an acknowledgement that the matchday atmosphere requires improvement and initiatives from the club and fans are being considered. Home games were when Spurs fans could vent their frustrations at the board most visibly and audibly, and though Daniel Levy is finally out, supporters are waiting to see what difference the ex-chairman’s departure makes.

That air of negativity that has hung over the Tottenham boardroom and dressing room this year hardly makes for a partisan atmosphere, and the mood has deteriorated further with the struggles of the players on the pitch.

Perhaps Frank ball is part of the problem. Under the new manager, Spurs are not the front-footed side they were, which is just fine away from home when their hosts are expected to seize the initiative. When the onus is on Tottenham to dictate, their opponents prosper.

Spurs have two chances this week to put their home fans in a better mood going into the international break. They welcome FC Copenhagen on Tuesday in the Champions League in which their only win so far came in their only home game.

Then on Saturday, Manchester United come to north London for a game which will set the mood for a fortnight for both sets of fans, with Ruben Amorim’s unbeaten-in-four side eighth, but level on points with fifth-placed Tottenham.

Arguably, Frank needs a win more than Amorim, despite it being the United boss who went into this four-game stretch between international breaks under more pressure than any other boss.

We find ourselves pondering a familiar question: What, precisely, is the point of Tottenham Hotspur?

The reason it feels a particularly pertinent thing to ask at this moment is not because, as ever, we’re unable to answer it. But because we really don’t think anyone connected with the club could give a coherent answer at this point.

What does a Good Season for Spurs look like this year? We’ve honestly absolutely no idea. A few events have collided to leave this looking like a club uniquely lost, in desperate need of direction and completely at a loss of where to look for it.

The flux at Spurs over the last six months has been quite extraordinary. The ownership hasn’t changed, but the boardroom structure and occupants are now almost entirely different. The manager has changed. The captain and most conspicuous ‘face of the franchise’ has left.

And perhaps in a curious way above all else, Spurs accidentally actually won something. We perhaps hadn’t realised the extent to which the trophy drought had become Spurs’ entire personality until just one fine day it simply wasn’t there anymore.

Spurs are now a club so lost and confused that even the anger and frustration is directionless. There is widespread frustration with Thomas Frank’s methods, particularly at home where his safety-first approach has become in its own way a massive risk. His well-documented opposition to taking low-percentage attempts on goal falls down entirely when the alternative, as has become the case across an increasingly wretched collection of drab home performances, is no attempts at all.

But there’s nothing coherent or visceral about it. Previously when faced with uncertainty about who to blame, Spurs fans could at least rest easy knowing Daniel Levy was there as the all-purpose default target. Everything could be and was pinned on him. At least you knew where you were.

There’s none of that now. And you can’t hate Thomas Frank, can you? Not really. Not the way you can hate more obvious pricks like Antonio Conte or Jose Mourinho when things are going wrong. Even Ange Postecoglou had a more compelling villainous streak in the tough times than the affable Dane.

We do wonder, though, whether Frank is a bigger part of the problem than might be apparent from a set of league games that, in the round, have delivered a passable 17 points from 10 games for a team that ended last season tumbling giddily and uncaringly towards a relegation zone from which it knew it was always safely insulated by the graver incompetence of others.

Frank’s brand of cautious, reactive football feels like it’s incredibly reliant on what the other team does. Away from home, where the opposition feel obliged to create some sort of running, it has been wildly effective, with four wins and a draw from five games. At home, it’s been atrocious.

And the reactive nature of those tactics mean it feels far, far more likely that the away form will eventually move towards the home record than the opposite. Because it is a style of football dictated by what the opposition are doing more than by what Spurs are doing. And quite quickly teams outside the elite few who will simply back themselves to just beat Spurs anyway are going to realise that the more they play like an away team at home to Spurs, the greater their chances.

Which again just feels like something we’ve seen time and time again when the manager who has overachieved with smaller clubs steps up to the big time. Seriously, how often does it actually work?

Eddie Howe at Newcastle, maybe, at a push. Mauricio Pochettino at Spurs themselves, but there was always a sense of bottled lightning about that, and his post-Spurs career has been remarkably unremarkable. But for every Howe or Poch there’s a David Moyes at Man United or a Graham Potter at Chelsea or about eight managers in a row at Newcastle themselves as well as Nuno Espirito Santo at Spurs.

It’s beguiling to watch managers like Frank or Marco Silva or Oliver Glasner overachieve under the radar, and for fans of struggling big clubs to start coveting those managers, but it’s just a very different game and a very different world once you’re at the big clubs.

You won’t get away with the same tactics and most significantly you won’t have any hope of staying under the radar.

You don’t get away with the dodgy little runs of form that nobody notices elsewhere. Nicking the occasional result against the big teams is no longer enough to sustain a narrative for six weeks.

Silva, for instance, has just come off a four-match losing run at Fulham. Fulham fans will have noticed. Silva will have noticed. The wider football consciousness didn’t; but they will if he now wins four games in a row.

There has been huge and deserved praise for Glasner’s transformative work with Crystal Palace, and we’re really not having a go here at perhaps the most conspicuous mid-table overachiever who might have the best chance of success at a bigger beast, but they’ve also only just come out of a run of four games without a win and featuring three defeats.

One of those was Arsenal, which is fair enough, but the others were against Everton and AEK Larnaca. You lose those games as manager of Spurs or Man United or Liverpool or Newcastle and you’re in major talking point territory and at the very least tentative suggestions of a mini-crisis and a cracked badge.

For valid and understandable reasons, these managers and clubs are noticed far more for their good works than the inevitable blips. But that is flipped entirely on its head the moment they step out of that comfort zone.

It’s still too early to say Frank is doomed at Spurs, but he will have to realise soon that he’s now at a club where shooting blanks at home to Chelsea sticks in the memory far longer than set-piecing your way to victory at Everton.

Gus Poyet insists that Tottenham looked “confused” in their 1-0 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday, while he has reacted to the Djed Spence and Micky van der Ven incident.

Despite the defeat to the Blues, Spurs are still ahead of their London rivals on goal difference with Tottenham fifth in the Premier League table.

Spurs were extremely disappointing against Chelsea with the visitors to north London unlucky not to leave with a bigger margin of victory.

Reacting to Tottenham’s performance against Chelsea, Poyet exclusively told Football365 in association with BetWright: “Obviously we were all expecting more from Spurs. I think sometimes, when you get to this kind of derby… I don’t pay too much attention to how the teams arrive to this game. You know how they come from the previous game, because it’s unique. So I was expecting, let’s say, a more competitive, more equal game.

“I think Chelsea players, they are playing at the moment, like the style and the way they want to play. Spurs to me looked like they were a little bit confused, and it was difficult to get into the pace of the game, like they were never in the rhythm. Then when the best player in Spurs is probably the goalkeeper, that tells you everything about it.”

When asked why they were “confused, Poyet added: “I think the team, more or less, is the team that we were expecting. It’s just that I think Spurs is in a process of change. I don’t forget how Ange was playing in the beginning, with that incredible high line and it was craziness. There were 3, 4, 5, 6 goals. I said in the beginning of the season, that season, if you want to see goals, go watch Spurs. Winning or losing is another matter.

READ: Simons gets Sancho’d in ‘ultimate humiliation’ as Spurs cannot ‘let it all work out’ for Eze rival

“So any other manager coming after that, it will be a process. Obviously. I don’t think that the squad of Spurs has too much in common with the squad of Brentford. Completely different the style of a player. So there is a little bit of adaptation both ways, from the coach to the players and the players to the coach. And I think that’s been the season so far.

“There have been games like Paris Saint-Germain, you go ‘wow’ and then the next game, you go, ‘what happened?’ Up and down because of that new way of playing.

“But then it’s a derby and the derbies, they are there to be won because it has nothing to do with their identity. They have nothing to do with a change of coach. It’s just a matter of the players going in there and performing.

“It didn’t look like Tottenham was playing a derby properly. They were just in between. Do we attack? Do we defend? We keep the ball? Do we play long? We work for a corner, for a throw-in. It was like a little bit of everything, and at the end, it was nothing. So bad day and the bad day is clear when the game finished and everything that happened after the game, which shows that it was a really big frustration in that stadium.”

Poyet: I think it was frustration of the players

At full-time, Spence and Van der Ven seemingly ignored Thomas Frank’s offer of a handshake with the Tottenham boss giving the duo a angry stare as they walked down the tunnel.

Reacting to the incident, Poyet added: “It’s not because of Frank because I don’t know him, and I think he’s a great coach, but I said it maybe two years ago, for some reason that nobody knows, the coaches, they start finishing the game in England, and they started walking onto the pitch.

“I don’t like it. Me, I’m a little bit old-fashioned, shake hands with the opposition, get in [the tunnel]. The stars are the players. I made one mistake here in Korea in my first game at home. That was a very important game, and the people from the media asked me to go close to the fans, and I stayed a little bit longer, and I said to them, that’s it.

“Me, I clap the fans, shake hands, and I go in. Okay? Then there are special celebrations. Special days, no, but the last two or three years, finish the game, shake hands. And the cameras, they follow the coaches onto the pitch.

“So I think it became like a habit, and that habit makes you be in positions that we should avoid, let’s say, with your players, with the opposite players, and the referees.

“Because if you go in, you don’t complain. If you go in front of the referee, there is something you want to talk about, maybe you complain and you get a yellow card. So I like it the old way.

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“So now this way of the coach going into the middle part, being on the screen and being, you know, the person who gets the most attention at the end of the game, brings the possibility of issues, and it’s not nice, because then you need to resolve it, even if you do it indoors, it’s been public, and now you’re asking me about that.

“So I think it was frustration of the players and let’s hope it’s a one-off, it can happen.

“I’ll make another example. I don’t set straight rules when I change a player, that the player comes in and out, and has to shake hands with me. No, you want to say something, then do; if you want to go in, go in. I was the worst when I was coming out. I’m not going to change now that I’m a coach, I’m not that hypocritical.

“So even when you change a player who is a little bit passionate, stay away because you don’t know why it’s coming. So try to be intelligent. But I think Frank probably didn’t know, and the players, they were frustrated because of the result, frustrated because of the way they played, and probably really frustrated about the reaction of the fans.

“There was a massive boo in there so I don’t think it’s a great time to talk to them, whatever he tried to say, you know, even stay, because that’s another thing. England is different to the world, but anywhere in the world, if you get that reaction from the fans, that booing, the players, they go in. You’re not going to stay to be booed. But okay, England is different.”

Tottenham ‘need to go and make things happen’ at home

When asked why Tottenham are better away from home, Poyet replied: “Normally it’s the responsibility of taking the game into your own hands. Away from home, you go with less responsibilities, maybe you feel secure, and you are in a different kind of… as a team.

“And then at home, you need to take it. You need to go and make things happen. So maybe the team, at the moment, feels better playing away from home or the results show that. So, it takes time, and the manager needs time for that to, you know, let’s say, ‘Okay, we know that away from home we’re going to be okay. Okay, how can we, you know, change at home to have better results.'”