Jamie Carragher broke down the number one problem with Spurs' build-up play prior to the November international break, which is that Frank has put far too much trust in two destroyers to anchor his midfield, particularly loan signing Joao Palhinha.
"Palhinha hasn't got the quality," he began, commentating over a clip from their loss to Chelsea. "For me, for a player playing in central midfield for Tottenham, that is a pass you have to be able to make. He can't make it, so... he goes back. Listen to the boos. The only reason he does a clever turn on the ball is because of the boos. Otherwise, he’d have gone back to the goalkeeper. Palhinha gets back on the ball and he takes five touches because he hasn't got the confidence or the ability.
"You might look at that result and think there's not a lot wrong, but when you watch the game at the weekend, that was like watching a League Two team against a Premier League team in the FA Cup. When you look at the stats, there was a huge contrast with the ball, and that is the biggest challenge for any coach making that jump from one of the teams in the bottom half of the Premier League to one of the big boys."
Pairing Portugal international Palhinha with Rodrigo Bentancur hasn't helped matters. In isolation, they're OK footballers who can break up play, but together they present huge challenges for Spurs both in and out of possession. They don't show for the ball, they don't want to progress the ball centrally, and they're not clean when they do get on the ball. The derby defeats showed their positions are effectively redundant too, seeing as Spurs gave away so many shots on the edge of the own box in the area the duo ought to be occupying.
Pape Matar Sarr, with his lung-busting energy and determination to actually get into the game, has inexplicably had his minutes cut following a fine start to the season. It probably isn't a coincidence he played out of his skin against PSG and Man City before results and performances took a tumble when he was removed from the XI. Meanwhile, Lucas Bergvall - the only player in the squad that resembles a deep-lying playmaker - and Archie Gray haven't featured enough considering those ahead of them have been churning out mediocre performances bi-weekly. Frank has to turn to fresh blood in midfield.
Spurs' inability to progress play in central areas has made them even more predictable than they were under Postecoglou. Guglielmo Vicario passes to Micky van de Ven, Van de Ven passes it back, Vicario passes it back again, Van de Ven doesn't have any other option but to smash it into the channel, where nobody is willing to challenge for it and they turn the ball over. Rinse and repeat every time you get a goal-kick.
Frank has tried to simplify Tottenham's game too much. It's overkill. As Gary Neville pointed out on commentary during the Arsenal loss, there's a difference between playing direct and playing long without any plan whatsoever.
Part of Spurs' current predicament is the only in-possession principles they appear to be abiding by are from set pieces. The Dane could perhaps take some tips from one of his predecessors, Mauricio Pochettino, in this sense.
Before Tottenham scored their second goal in what was an eventual 3-2 loss at Liverpool in 2015 during his first season, Pochettino was seen shouting one particular instruction towards defender Eric Dier. "Eric! To feet! No long balls!" he yelped from the sidelines. Now, this version of Spurs would go on to become a team who could cut teams open with ranging passes, but the point is that Pochettino wanted his troops to learn a rudimentary way of his final philosophy first. To boot, this came after the Argentine had made sweeping squad changes to overthrow the old guard and build around a younger core. This wouldn't be unprecedented territory for Frank to head into as a Tottenham head coach.
This is a minor point in the grand scheme of this rebuild given there are only three full-backs in the Tottenham squad and Destiny Udogie has been injured for part of the season, but it's a structural issue all the same.
Pedro Porro, one of the Premier League's best attacking full-backs, hasn't hit top form yet this season. He's getting into promising positions, though has been let down by some poor deliveries and his team-mates not exactly knowing where to stand and which runs to make. Playing a back five at Arsenal would have made far more sense if Spain's first-choice right-back was starting instead of the defence-first option of Djed Spence.
Speaking of the England star, Spence's inclination to tuck infield when deployed on the left has also contributed to an overload of nothingness in the middle of the park. In the absence of Udogie, it would be worth giving Van de Ven some more opportunities at full-back, where he has been playing for the Netherlands national team.
Back in August, Tottenham nearly wrapped up a deal to sign Eberechi Eze. At the eleventh hour, Arsenal swooped in and brought him back to his boyhood club instead. The silver lining for Spurs was this led to a deal for Xavi Simons, who was only lower down their list of targets because it seemed for all the world he would be heading to Chelsea instead.
It would have hurt the Lilywhites immeasurably that Simons was dropped for the derby while Eze dropped a hat-trick on them. The point made by fans on social media post-match was there's an irony that Eze probably wouldn't have even been selected for this encounter had he joined Tottenham, such has been the extent of Frank's pragmatism to this point.
Simons, much like Liverpool's Florian Wirtz, is still adapting to the Premier League following a successful stint in the Bundesliga. If Spurs fans want any consolation over what happened at the Emirates Stadium, the Dutchman is five years Eze's junior and clearly has the potential to become a leading attacking midfielder, though his development is only being stifled by Frank and his deep-lying midfielders refusing to get him into games more.
This Tottenham team have created very little over the course of the season irrespective of whether Simons has been playing, though arguably one of their more potent spells came when they were trailing at Brighton in October, and the introduction of the No.10 in his natural position helped Spurs come from two goals down to earn a well-deserved 2-2 draw. Simons may as well be given more of a licence to roam and feel his way into games if Frank's men are putting up such measly xG totals anyway.
That brings us back to a quote that has been doing the rounds again among Spurs fans. During Frank's unveiling, he preached to a new club the one defining principle that had served him so well at Brentford.
"I always say this one-liner: 'If you don't take risk, you also take risk'. So I think it's important that we take risks. If you don't risk the ball, you can't create anything," were his words in June. Well, Tottenham have been playing pretty bloody precariously by those standards then.
What Frank likely meant by those words probably translated into the PSG and Man City performances in August, where Spurs pressed two of the world's best footballing teams into extreme discomfort and were a tad unfortunate not to have won both of those games 2-0. That's the recipe that saw his Bees side topple so many 'Big Six' teams when he was at the Gtech Community Stadium. But performances this autumn haven't followed suit and Frank has to get to the bottom of that.
"We tried to come here and be aggressive and press high and in spells go after them. We didn't succeed with that bit. We didn't manage to get near enough them in the situations we could," Frank said post-Arsenal. "It means we got pushed back and got a little too passive. It looks like we are running after them. When we finally got on the ball we were not good enough to get out of those situations. No matter how painful it is to admit, they are definitely six years down the line and we are four months down the line, but even with that I was still expecting much more from us today. Not that we could dominate over 90 minutes but that we could be as competitive as we were against Man City and PSG."
Frank switched to a 5-4-1 against Arsenal, only for his gameplan to be thrown on the fire once the Gunners found the net twice before the half-time whistle. Carragher again took aim at Frank for such a switch.
"They don't play that system so often. That is always the fall-down of that system. That's what we've been talking about for 12 months with Man United and Ruben Amorim," he said. "When we talk about the back five we always talk about the two central midfield players. That's the part of that system that will let you down.
"In terms of isolation today tactically, yes that caused them a big problem, but I think the bigger picture for Thomas Frank and Tottenham is - they are missing some really good attacking players - but the big thing for any manager making that jump is can he create chances, can he score goals, can he go win games rather than stop the opposition."
It was a call questioned in Frank's press conference, too. "I'm a very big believer that no matter what system you play you can be successful," was his retort. "I completely understand the question and I will always take the full responsibility. The full responsibility will always be on me today when we didn't perform.
"I picked a team that played 5-4-1, changed it at half-time, very clever one minute into it they scored, 3-0. Then the rest is history after that. What I would say is that no matter if we played another system we needed to be more aggressive and better in the duels. That doesn't matter to the system, but I need to take responsibility for everything today."
To a certain extent, Frank's right. The system is immaterial if you can't do the basics, but playing one basic way may be Spurs' best route to productivity again. Jumbling the forward line every three days is clearly impacting chemistry, too. Tottenham need one identity before they can even begin to think of mastering Frank's trademark chameleon circuit of formations and styles.
Postecoglou, for all his flaws, had the gift of the gab. It's hard to imagine many other managers with a lesser way of words lasting as long as he did at Tottenham. The Australian would consistently come out and charm the media, have them believe losing game after game was successful part of a successful process. He could at least hang his hat on how his spell was bookended with a record-breaking start to his first Premier League season and glory in the Europa League.
Frank's goodwill from the start of the season has already evaporated, and at this rate it's extremely difficult to envisage him bringing silverware to Spurs. Although not quite on Postecoglou's level, Frank was seen as a fine orator at Brentford, someone worthy of being the face of the club on all matters, but now he's cracking under a more intense spotlight.
Tottenham's pressure to win every three days, with games both preceded and followed by packed-out press conferences, may have gotten under his skin. He made a blunder in his first meeting with the media, accidentally praising Arsenal for their unbeaten 2003-04 season while saying 'we will 100 percent lose matches'. There have been several other missteps since, including his 'who's Eze?' remark prior to the playmaker's hat-trick.
This is not only a problem for the team and the staff, but for the club as a whole. Six or seven years ago, Tottenham were on an upward trajectory, moving ahead of Arsenal and Chelsea as London's best side. The squad has significantly weakened, the supposedly 'game-changing' stadium is beautiful but definitely not intimidating, and a general malaise has seen standards slip across all levels.
It's not fair that Frank has to shoulder the responsibility of putting out all these fires when facing the press and with his team's performances, but that's what the best managers at this level and under this stress do.
There's no guarantee that Frank will survive this harsh winter. Games against PSG, Fulham, Newcastle and Brentford could decide his fate if all goes awry as it is threatening to.
Tottenham need a borderline miracle to get a result at Parc des Princes on Wednesday. Playing with more intent and making some inroads against the European champions would probably go further to building bridges with fans again than waiting to die in their own 18-yard box.
But beyond that, Spurs need to show some more cojones. Frank can't afford to let his old rivals of Fulham and Marco Silva get the better of him again, let alone when his old club head to N17 seven days later, while the trip to St James' Park in between is another opportunity to claim a scalp away from home.
Frank's Tottenham are on their way to being remembered as one of the least ambitious sides to ever grace the Premier League. It's time to take some risks.
.png "'Another howler from VAR' - Arsenal and Tottenham fans join forces to rage at officials after shocking penalty decision in draw with Newcastle - Goal.com")
