"I love my former club Brentford and I'm falling in love with this club here," admitted Thomas Frank on Saturday afternoon after a big early statement win against Manchester City.
The feeling is reciprocated as there's a quickly-sprouting affection and excitement around Frank within Tottenham Hotspur. The 51-year-old has embraced the ideals of the club while trying to make key changes of his own to the culture around the training ground and the football.
On the pitch, those changes are already clear with three very different tactical set-ups to take on three very different opponents and it should have brought three wins but for a tired five minutes or so in Udine.
That was always going to be the Frank way. The Dane has his principles, built on aggressive phases of play in different parts of the pitch, but beyond that his teams can morph into anything he chooses them to be.
Tottenham have gone through managers in recent years who either have a very set way of playing regardless of the opposition or are overly concerned about those they are facing. Frank is somewhere in the middle, with set foundations of play but always alongside a different plan to counter what might be thrown at them.
The players have bought into it quickly. Having Cristian Romero doing so and rewarded with the captaincy and his new contract was an important building block for Frank so early in his tenure. For where Cuti Romero goes, others follow.
Off the pitch, Frank has won over staff behind the scenes quickly. People at all levels rave about their interactions with him, "a thoroughly nice human being" making an effort to remember the name of everyone he meets and showing an interest in them.
Frank knows this is still the honeymoon period and in his first meeting with staff across Hotspur Way in the summer he made it clear that they would lose matches but that their time together would be defined by how they dealt with those disappointments rather than the victories.
The Dane is a man who will not let his thoughts run away with him and he could well know that the last Spurs manager to win the first two games of the season, including beating Pep Guardiola's City albeit at home, was Nuno Espirito Santo. The Portuguese only lasted a couple of months longer at Tottenham and may not last much longer at Nottingham Forest.
It feels at this point that the Frank tenure is built on stronger foundations, not least a club that must make good on the decision to hire him in the first place in the aftermath of that European trophy.
Watching the technical area around Frank is certainly a fascinating experience and one different to what would happen around his predecessor Ange Postecoglou.
The Australian always maintained he preferred to observe games in order to make better decisions rather than run through the gamut of emotions. That would frustrate the fans though who wanted action from the man at the helm.
Frank is different, he's constantly talking, whether to his players or with his coaching staff. Like Postecoglou he delegates, but it feels even more collaborative in terms of who speaks to the players.
Matt Wells, who is in charge of the defence and was praised by Frank after the game, was constantly beside him on Saturday, discussing everything with his boss and bellowing instructions to the team.
Frank pushes for collaboration and he could often be seen turning and encouraging others such as set piece coach Andreas Georgson and goalkeeping coach Fabian Otte to be vocal when their areas of expertise were involved in play.
The Tottenham analysts, including Joe Newton - Frank's trusted eye at Brentford - sat just in front of football.london, and were constantly passing on what they could see from their position in the stand to the bench and what was apparent through quickly poured over video analysis.
The analysts are all in constant contact with Wells, Justin Cochrane and Georgson, while the latter also has his own direct line with the set piece analyst.
It's just one big collaborative machine and Frank still needs it to get better. His coaching meetings at Brentford each day eventually got down to just 15 minutes, but on tour he said they were lasting around an hour at Spurs.
On Friday, he admitted to football.london that they have shaved three minutes off that run time, but there was plenty more work to do to streamline the processes involved and understand everything he wants.
If all of the above makes you think Frank is all cuddles and happiness, don't believe it. He is only a moment away from unleashing that Danish glare, which is often accompanied by some choice words and often ones that cannot be printed.
Even though all of his players were excellent at the Etihad, some still got to hear his wrath.
An early occasion came in the first half when Djed Spence took a quick throw backwards when Georgson was primed to set up a long throw routine. That brought exasperated Scandinavian shouts from both the Swede and Dane at a missed opportunity to cause havoc in the City box.
Even goalscorer Brennan Johnson could not escape. When he ran through on a break with three of his team-mates, his shot over the bar rather than using the extra numbers Spurs had on the counter was met by a volley of expletives from Frank.
In the final minutes of the game, Spence got it again from both the head coach and Wells when he made a great break up the pitch only to be too knackered to get back again as both coaches roared across the pitch and him and waving at the 25-year-old to get back into his own half at least as City counter-attacked.
Overall though it was mostly cuddles and happiness, especially at the final whistle for Spurs marshalled City perfectly, Frank becoming the sixth Tottenham manager in a row to win a game with a clean sheet against Guardiola.
The opening goal from Johnson was borne of a quick break, with Pedro Porro finding the head of Pape Matar Sarr with Richarlison running on to the Senegal midfielder's flick-on before pulling the ball across the box for the Wales international to smash home. It was reminiscent of the Postecoglou goals trained week in, week out at Hotspur Way.
The second goal though was all about Frank's pressing demands. The rushing Sarr got a foot to a James Trafford short pass out of goal ahead of Nico Gonzalez and while the diving goalkeeper then got a touch to the ball at Richarlison's feet, he could only knock it across to Joao Palhinha, who smashed it back past him.
In the second half, the City onslaught never really came. Guglielmo Vicario had made a couple of good saves in the first period but was largely untroubled after the break.
Instead the visitors looked more likely to score again with a string of headed chances for Richarlison, one for Dominic Solanke and two for Wilson Odobert as Spurs took home all three points and another clean sheet.
In all, Spurs had 12 shots to City's 10. When the final whistle blew, the Spurs fans sang "Manchester City, it's happened again" after yet another impressive win at the Etihad Stadium.
"I'm very delighted. Extremely proud of the players' performance. I think it was an exceptionally good performance," Frank told football.london. "I think the first 35 minutes, we know a couple of things, we know it's always difficult to play against City. Here at the Etihad it's even more difficult.
"The first 35 minutes I thought was fairly even, but with City on top, I think they were more on top than us. There was a big mentality shift in terms of staying in the game and keeping doing what we wanted to do, scoring a great goal. Maybe that changed a little bit of momentum, but we definitely stayed on top and went 2-0 up.
"Second half, I think we were very good. The big spell where we could think that they would put pressure on us, I think we were very aggressive in the high pressure, that we were very front-footed, with the mindset to constantly go for the 3-0 goal.
"And then, then I must say that the clean sheet makes me very happy. It's a big thing we've been working on, not on clean sheets as that's easier said than done, but on the defensive side of the game, high pressure, middle block, low block, defend the box mentality, blocking shots, everything.
"Because if you get clean sheets you're closer to winning a game and also last year we had six clean sheets, so yeah, that's very big for me."
It's near impossible to pick out a Spurs player that outshone the rest even if Sarr won the man of the match award, which Richarlison duly claimed in the dressing room as is his cheeky tradition.
For Vicario pulled off those vital first half saves from Omar Marmoush even if some of his short kicking was a bit scary in the second half.
Ahead of him, Porro was excellent other than an undercooked header meant for Vicario in the first half that gave Marmoush a chance, while Spence never stopped running until those final moments when Frank and Wells yelled at him to.
With the way that Spence is dealing with the game's top wingers, it might not be long before Thomas Tuchel has a look at him in his England squad. "Bring me your favourite winger," proclaimed Spence on his Instagram account on the way back from the Etihad.
It makes such a difference for a Spurs manager to have Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven alongside each other and they were both on top form against City.
Romero led the way with booming challenges, one of which so impressed the man who was crunched - Gonzalez - that the City man unexpectedly turned around and gave the Tottenham captain a high five.
Romero was also on the end of one of the poorest yellow card decisions likely to be seen this season when he earned one for an absolutely inch-perfect sliding tackle in which he clearly won the ball.
Romero topped the defensive stats on the pitch with six ball recoveries, three interceptions, two tackles, one block, three clearances and two headed clearances.
Alongside him, Van de Ven got away with what looked like a penalty missed for catching Oscar Bobb on the foot early in the second half, although perhaps it was balanced out by
Trafford almost taking Kudus' head off with a challenge when running out of his box.
The Dutch centre-back was otherwise excellent though and raced back to make a brilliant sliding block to deny Phil Foden from scoring with 12 minutes to go.
Then there was Joao Palhinha. The on-loan 30-year-old is looking like one of the bargains of the summer with every passing game.
It's no secret that Frank would have loved to have brought Christian Norgaard with him to Tottenham from Brentford rather than Arsenal getting him, but Palhinha feels as perfectly fitting a cog in the Frank machine as the Norwegian.
The Portuguese has brought back a lot of what Spurs lost with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg's exit only with a more all-round game.
Palhinha won more duels (eight) and made more tackles (four) than any other player on the pitch on Saturday and when he made a great block in the second half he celebrated it like he did his well-taken goal.
Alongside the ridiculously composed Rodrigo Bentancur, Spurs have the makings of a powerful and technically impressive experienced central midfield duo.
When football.london asked about Palhinha and his influence in that midfield pairing, Frank took a moment to comment on the noise around the club this week.
"I think it's fair to say that we got a few questions about the transfer market yesterday, a lot about why not and what if and all that. What is 100% sure is we brought two top players into the club, Kudos and Palhinha, both of them have performed very well, which I'm very pleased with," he said.
"Then Palhinha, yeah, wow, you know, sometimes players need confidence and they need to be on top and I don't think he's fully fit yet, where I want him to be, but very pleased with his performance and he's definitely helping the team."
When the former Fulham midfielder spoke after the game to TNT Sports he spoke about Frank's involvement in bringing him to N17.
"The coach pushed me to come here and showed me the project," Palhinha said: "It is such a great club, and I am really glad to be in the Premier League again.
"I am so happy, me and my family. Now I want to enjoy this top club and top atmosphere again."
Sarr got the man of the match award and again showed that he's going to be a star in the Frank system, with his ability to deliver tactical performances to the letter with the energy and technical ability required.
Kudus showed his strength and dribbling ability again and terrified City every time he had the ball down the right. On the other side, Johnson worked hard defensively and played at times like a number 10, spraying the ball around, which is actually his natural position from when he was younger.
The Wales international's goal once again showed his remarkable ability to arrive in the right areas at the right times as he made it back-to-back games with goals. Frank referred to him as the team's deep runner on Friday and it's an apt description for the 24-year-old.
He was pushed towards the Spurs fans by his team-mates after the game as the away faithful sang the "Johnson again" chant that will be forever linked with that run of games last season when he just kept scoring and of course that night in Bilbao.
Up front Richarlison again showed why, if he can remain fit, there are few ready made Premier League strikers who can bring what he does to the Frank system. If he can steer clear of those previous woes then he and Solanke will be an important duo to rotate between as the games come thick and fast.
Richarlison knocked on Frank's door and said he wanted to stay at Spurs on the first day of pre-season and he hasn't really looked back since.
Solanke, Odobert and Lucas Bergvall all made an impact when they came on to the pitch late on, either fashioning chances for themselves or others.
Spurs need more depth though. As often is the case at the club, the starting XI is strong and can put in performances like this but you need to do it consistently. If you take a couple of players out of it as the fixtures pile up then it's a recipe for what happened last season to return.
Frank admitted to football.london the day before the game that the two new faces in Kudus and Palhinha had only really balanced out the exit of Son Heung-min and long-term absence of James Maddison, so his squad was "similar" to the one he inherited before the window.
That's certainly not the aim of a transfer window, to end up with what you started with. Lose Palhinha or Kudus and you're worse off than you were before.
The Tottenham fans remain unhappy at what they see as a lack of backing for Frank in what feels like another one of those summers when the club should have pushed on but instead at this point have not spent anything like what the Premier League's top sides have because of the failed moves for Morgan Gibbs-White and Eberechi Eze.
Spurs fans chanted for chairman Daniel Levy's exit within 50 seconds of the match starting, they did so again with their team 2-0 up and then after the game as well as the "Johnson again" song died down.
The 63-year-old was in attendance and while he claims he is not bothered by criticism and that people will appreciate him when he is gone, Levy will be well aware of the suggestion from the fanbase that Thomas Frank is doing everything he can for Tottenham but those above him are not pulling their weight.
After a tough week at Spurs this was otherwise a good day, with the women's team also winning at Arsenal in a pre-season friendly under new manager Martin Ho.
Now Spurs need to kick on and that's often been something they've been accused of not doing when it matters. This feels like one of those key moments.
Savinho's agent Rodrigo Zeitel was at the Etihad Stadium along with both club's powerbrokers and a big bid for the talented Brazilian to test City's resolve would be a display of Tottenham's desire to back Frank.
That road was not a closed one on Saturday and hopefully Spurs can make an offer City cannot refuse for an experienced 21-year-old with a ridiculous amount of ability and potential.
Lange has a list of other targets for the number 10, winger and centre-back roles that Spurs will examine over the final week of the transfer window. Frank needs experienced heads, not necessarily in age but in game time - like Savinho - to take into the Champions League and a big Premier League push as well as those domestic cup competitions.
Right now Frank has started his tenure well, but so did Postecoglou back in 2023 only to be handed one senior player and a group of teenagers the following summer after finishing fifth.
Levy made clear his lofty expectations for the club this summer, now his and Tottenham's actions must underline those words rather than leave them hanging in the air as empty promises.
Thomas Frank's Tottenham Hotspur could be something special, but his whole ethos is about collaboration. He can't do it by himself.
