It is the kind of story that has got around the Premier League, and explains why so many wealthy clubs have considered Thomas Frank. Earlier this season, the Brentford coach was having a chat with Fabian Hurzeler, and enthusing about Brighton’s style of play.
“I’d love to play like this,” Frank said, before smiling. “I’d need another £100m, though.”
If that sounds self-indulgent, and like a manager who can only play a certain way if he is given sufficient money, it isn’t. It is really testament to the job he has done without money. After Brentford got promoted in 2020-21, they had by far the lowest wage bill in the Premier League for the next two seasons. Figures of £68m and £99m should have sent them straight back down, in a way we’ve seen with so many other promoted clubs.
Frank instead established Brentford in the Premier League, making them a fixture. It’s hardly as if other clubs are queuing up for their players, either, in the way they are with Bournemouth. He has made them so much better than the sum of their parts, and it is why Tottenham Hotspur are actively pursuing him.
Analysis by Swiss Ramble shows that Brentford have been top of the league in terms of performance relative to wages for every single season they have been in the Premier League. That shows the scale of Frank’s overperformance.
It could be said this is merely a case of a manager perfectly fitting one club, as can happen. Except, Frank hasn’t always had the same approach, or even the same kind of team. Brentford have gone through multiple different incarnations under the Dane, as a team and a club.
Premier League sporting directors see Frank as one of the most successfully adaptive coaches in the game. Some even feel the 51-year-old is not given anywhere near enough credit for that, a quality that becomes even more valuable in a football world that is moving away from dogmatic ideology. Frank’s teams played in drastically different ways when Brentford were in the Championship, when they went up and then when they stayed up.
When he needs to play percentage football, he’ll play percentage football. When he needs to break with pace, he’ll break with pace. When he needs possession, he can do possession.
There were even occasions in the past season when Brentford resembled Jack Charlton’s Ireland for the way they constantly made defenders turn. That has fostered a view that he is “unfairly pigeon-holed”.
It is also why clubs like Tottenham have no concerns when they ask Frank how he would play at a higher level. Instead, just like those at Brighton, they are enthused by his response. He is persuasive.
That is displayed in perhaps the most impressive aspect of this manager search. As recently as April, Frank was liked but not near the top of Spurs’ list. Now, he’s close to the job itself, having leapt ahead of so many other candidates. It is testament to a genuine charisma.
That feeds into one of the most pertinent questions about Frank, which isn’t how he’ll play, which shouldn’t be too much of a concern. It’s how he’ll manage a higher-paid dressing room.
This does matter, especially given the greater intensity that surrounds the better-supported clubs. The noise can take over, as Ange Postecoglou found. That can make it worse in a dressing room. As one insider from elite Premier League squads says: “The reality is that high-level players can be pricks.” The window of acceptance for coaches is narrow and getting narrower. It’s why coaches without track records at big clubs have to win straight away.
Postecoglou essentially got two years at Spurs out of his successful first 10 games. While the decision to sack a Europa League winner seems emotionally harsh, the reality is that the nature of that cup run was too far removed from what you actually need for the Premier League. There was a logic to Spurs' decision.
Put bluntly, Postecoglou’s side weren’t playing Premier League-level opposition for most of it, and still compromised everything. It wasn’t really a recipe for medium-term success, other than from the potential emotional fillip that could have created a momentum.
Frank knows how fragile it can be to rely on such intangibles, having been at a club as scientific as Brentford. The substance to his own personality stands out all the more.
The Dane is described as a “good human”, something that isn’t exactly said with great frequency in football. It might even be more valuable in a sport that has moved far away from the school of hard knocks, or even Jose Mourinho’s “confrontational leadership”.
A social media generation is now more likely to respond better to encouragement rather than excoriation. As a former teacher, Frank is highly attuned to the balance required there. It also makes him a far more rounded figure than most managers.
That has another effect. In an era where tactics have become ever more detailed and sophisticated, many modern coaches almost need to be obsessives, and quite intense. They can be utterly tunnel-visioned. That doesn’t always make for the most illuminating media appearances when they are thrown wider state-of-the-game or state-of-the-union questions in the way that Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson used to be.
Frank has no such problem with that. He is engaging to listen to, which is what his players warm to, too. That intelligence has almost made him the voice of the Premier League, and perhaps even the moral voice. Brentford might have just suffered a frustrating defeat to elite opposition, but Frank is still willing to expound on everything from the Club World Cup to financial disparity.
That means much more than the relative superficiality of how he speaks to the media. It makes him a figurehead, something that Spurs have arguably never had greater need for.
It’s not just about that, though. Frank deserves his opportunity, and has proven he is capable of seizing such moments.
