The end came for Thomas Frank just when he maintained it wouldn't as Tottenham decided to bring a close to his seven-month tenure at the north London club.
It was CEO Vinai Venkatesham, along with sporting director Johan Lange, who made the recommendation to the club's owners, the Lewis family, late on Tuesday night, soon after watching the latest Spurs disappointment unfold alongside non-executive chairman Peter Charrington. Venkatesham had tried to give the 52-year-old as much time as possible but what he produced was ultimately not enough.
"The club has taken the decision to make a change in the men’s head coach position and Thomas Frank will leave today," read a statement from Tottenham the following morning.
"Thomas was appointed in June 2025, and we have been determined to give him the time and support needed to build for the future together. However, results and performances have led the board to conclude that a change at this point in the season is necessary.
"Throughout his time at the club, Thomas has conducted himself with unwavering commitment, giving everything in his efforts to move the club forward. We would like to thank him for his contribution and wish him every success in the future."
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OPINION
Ultimately Frank lost the confidence of the dressing room as well as the fans. He put his faith in a small core leadership group of players - some of those outside that main group would go days without getting barely a word from him on an individual basis and few knew where they stood with him.
Once the leaders began to waver over him, the Dane's tenure began sliding towards its end as the atmosphere became difficult. Brought in as a safe pair of hands, he eventually proved to be nothing of the sort.
Frank had remained certain the end would not come. Never has one man been so sure of his fate in the face of such overwhelming opposition, but the threat of relegation was too much in the end for the club.
Watching the Dane show such defiance despite the odds after the final whistle was like seeing Jon Snow drawing his sword alone in front of the galloping Bolton cavalry. Only thundering towards Frank in the swirling rain were the Spurs fans, dreadful results and the inevitable and there were no Knights of the Vale to ride over the hill during the transfer window to save him or after this latest defeat.
Make no mistake, Frank's was a dreadful version of Tottenham Hotspur and it belonged where it lay, languishing in the lower reaches of the table. He had united the Tottenham fanbase but not in the way anybody inside the club had hoped or planned.
At the final whistle on Tuesday night, those remaining Spurs supporters in the south stand, who hadn't already left on the drizzly journey home, sang 'You're getting sacked in the morning' towards the drenched Dane before belting out another rendition of 'Mauricio Pochettino, he's magic you know'.
For years, Tottenham had twisted rather than stuck with a manager but there was nothing about the Frank era to suggest he should finally be the one to break the cycle of doom at the club since Pochettino was sacked.
The fanbase had every right to wonder why if the Argentine was handed his marching orders in 2019 despite all of his credit in the bank and just six months after reaching a historic Champions League final, what had the current incumbent done to earn such remarkable patience?
His players appeared broken and they looked confused by what they were meant to do. The team was struggling to attack but also failing to defend, the one thing everybody assumed the Dane would fix.
The bar was so low that even simply getting near the opposition goal felt like a positive rather than the bare minimum it should be. Tottenham have scored 14 fewer goals in the Premier League than they had at this stage last season and they have fewer points.
Yet when asked after this latest defeat to yet another out of form side - Newcastle have won just two of their past 15 away games - if he had spoken to the Tottenham hierarchy and whether he was worried about his position, Frank simply told TNT Sports: "I spoke to them [owners] yesterday so no."
When asked whether the fans' chants might cause the club to change their mind, the Dane only said: "No."
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In his press conference, Frank was asked if he was sure he would be in charge of Spurs in the north London derby in 11 days' time.
"Yeah, I’m convinced I will be. I understand the question and I understand it’s easy to point to me but I also think it’s never only the head coach or the ownership or the directors or the players or the staff. It’s everyone," he said.
"If you do something right, you build something that can last. Of course we are not in a top position now. Everyone knows, directors, ownership, myself, what position we are in, what we need to improve and what we need to do better. That is what we are working very hard on."
Frank looked utterly convinced he would remain as Tottenham manager despite being one of the club's worst in its history in terms of the results.
Now he is no longer the club's manager. Tottenham won just two of their past 17 matches in the Premier League and had no semblance of an attacking plan when the players stepped on to the pitch.
Whenever a Spurs player received the ball on Tuesday night he would look up and around and there was nobody to pass to. The only option was to pass it sideways and backwards, as the fans chant about their team.
When football.london put it to Frank that there was still no semblance of attacking patterns of play within the group seven months into his reign and everything hinged on the team getting a corner or long throw, the Dane simply said: "The injuries, I think they need to be massively taken into consideration. I haven’t really said it too much, but everyone can see the impact of things."
Absolutely Tottenham have a huge amount of injuries, 11 in total including a new worrying-looking knee problem for Wilson Odobert on Tuesday night. There was also captain Cristian Romero sat on the sidelines in the drizzle, serving the first of his four game ban when Spurs need him the most.
So mentioning the absences was fine but to have said just a week earlier that Spurs made "good, calm" decisions in only looking at players for the short-term and not adding late loan players in the window, it seemed paradoxical.
It's also worth pointing out that when Spurs went through this exact same injury crisis last season you could see that vital parts of the team were missing. Ben Davies and Archie Gray were playing as the central defenders, Mathys Tel had to come in and play as the long centre forward and playmakers were few and far between.
Frank started the match against Eddie Howe's side with £176million of talent in his front four. Yet that quartet looked like they had never played a game together. There were no passing triangles or patterns of play to draw upon from training sessions over the previous seven months.
Newcastle had no recognised striker up front yet every time they swept forward they looked dangerous, the players interlinked with their movement and penned Spurs back in their own half for long periods, forcing nine corners in the opening period alone.
Once again another out of form, down on their luck side came to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and were made to look anything but. If you want confidence and goals, Dr Tottenham will see you now and inject them into your veins.
"I think maybe there's a theme. I think we've lost definitely too many games at home. There's no doubt about that," Frank admitted to football.london of out-of-forms sides ending their runs against Spurs.
"This is a Newcastle team, a very experienced Newcastle team. They've been in various situations. They also know how to get out of situations like this, or whatever the situation they were in. But again, I think they were more on top in the first half.
"We're coming back, equalising, 1-1. At that stage it's an open game and that's where we need to understand, yes, we need to do everything we can to win, but we can't concede a goal like we conceded a goal."
Regardless of the injuries, the Tottenham starting XI selected was more than good enough to beat an ailing visiting side at home but they seemed to have no real idea or instruction of how to do so.
Too many times, the north London side look like the away team when they play at home or perhaps they are simply set up to play that way.
There was an inevitability about Newcastle taking the lead in the first half. It seemed to have come first from Joe Willock running through the dual carriageway left for him in the centre of the pitch only for VAR to point out that a lock of hair on his forehead was offside.
Eventually the goal came before the break when Malick Thiaw's header was parried by Guglielmo Vicario only for the German to walk through the weakest of marking from Pape Matar Sarr to prod home the loose ball. The boos rang out.
As has been the case throughout this season, going behind causes Tottenham to finally emerge from their shell with more abandon and they start to create the odd chance.
It sums up where this football club is that once again a second half revival was led by a 19-year-old central midfielder playing at right-back.
As he fired up Spurs against Manchester City so on Tuesday night Archie Gray cushioned the ball into the net from Sarr's header to level the scores. It was another set piece, coming from Xavi Simons' deep corner but at least it was a goal.
Gray again proved the character that has many believing he will one day captain this Tottenham side in happier times.
Unfortunately his goal ended up meaning little as Spurs crumbled just four minutes later when Jacob Ramsey fired home into a gaping net from Anthony Gordon's ball. It all came from an underhit Conor Gallagher pass as Spurs broke up the pitch.
The air whooshed out of the home team. Captain for the night Micky van de Ven had a big chance in the final moments with a strike over the crossbar but that had been all they could muster from that point on. Just two shots on target all night.
The players collapsed at the final whistle. Some looked emotional, others broken and crouched down, surveying the scene as the boos closed in around them again.
Tottenham are in huge trouble. They lie 16th in the Premier League table and were a last-gasp Benjamin Sesko goal from being three points above the drop zone rather than five.
That's what it's come to for the north London club. Rather than building on their first trophy in 17 years, they are praying for other teams to win matches against West Ham et al to prevent them from staring fully into the abyss.
If 17th-placed Nottingham Forest win at home against bottom side Wolves then they will draw level on points with Spurs. Crystal Palace host Burnley and could pull away from danger.
Leeds drew with Chelsea and everyone seemed capable of winning matches apart from Spurs under Frank. They did not win a single one yet in 2026 in the Premier League under the Dane.
All the reasons given for sticking with Frank beforehand were the same ones dispensed with for Ange Postecoglou. Spurs must show patience, look at the injuries, the team will come good as people come back.
Yet there was proof of the football Tottenham could play under Postecoglou. There was no such evidence under Frank, no set style or football to get the fans out of their seats.
Spurs went backwards and they had shown no signs of moving forward again. The senior players looked lost with no enjoyment on their faces when they played, just a grim look of trying to get through.
What was also concerning is that so many of these players have suffered relegation with previous clubs and they may not have had the answers alone to correcting that course with Tottenham under Frank.
"We of course understand we're not in a good situation, but with everything in life you need to stay calm, keep doing it and keep going," said Frank.
But keep going where? It got to the stage where it was difficult to see how any change in the dugout could make Spurs worse and that ultimately did it for Frank.
They struggled to score, they couldn't keep the ball out of their own net and they looked utterly lacking in belief and inspiration.
When asked if he was convinced he was the right man for the job, Frank said: "1000 per cent sure. I am also 1000 per cent sure that I never expected us to be in a situation like this with 11 or 12 injuries on the back end of this and what we’ve been facing, but I know when you need to build something and need to get through things, you need to show unbelievable strong resilience.
"I think it is fair to say there are a few before me up here not only for Tottenham but in many other clubs that have lost their head many times and I think you need to have a calm head, carry on, keep fighting and keep doing the right thing, make sure we stick together because we can only do this if we stick together.
"That is the board, that is the leaders, that is the players, that is the staff, that is me and that is the fans. We’ve got to get through this."
Tottenham knew that with 11 days until the north London derby, and the players off now for five days, that was the time to make the change.
There was no real plan on the pitch and now the hierarchy must redraw theirs off the pitch after making such a huge thing about Frank being the perfect man who ticked every one of the 10 criteria for the job, despite thus far showing no such thing.
Michael Carrick's interim spell at Manchester United has been a huge success and some within the hierarchy will have questioned why they did not move for the former Spurs midfielder first.
Tottenham are working on their contingency plans and an interim candidate looks the most likely route at the moment with so few permanent options currently available.
Robbie Keane's early managerial work will be looked at but would the Irishman make the jump from a full-time role at Ferencvaros to an interim one at Spurs if asked? Matt Wells would have been the ideal interim candidate as he was popular with the players but it now the head coach of Colorado Rapids in MLS.
Frank brought in John Heitinga to replace Wells and the experienced Dutchman did well as an interim head coach at Ajax before a far less successful spell as a permanent one. Stuart Lewis has a growing reputation within Tottenham after his work with the U18s and became part of Frank's staff, but he would have to quickly earn the respect of the senior players if he were to be chosen.
Tottenham may look for a safe pair of experienced hands. Roberto De Zerbi has just come on to the market after departure from Marseille, following the latest chapter in the volatile Italian's career. The former Brighton man would not surely want to be an interim candidate and a permanent move for the fiery 46-year-old could bring a short-term reaction but long-term problems.
Former Barcelona manager Xavi remains unemployed and would be a glitzy option as well as earning respect from the players, although there is no evidence as of yet to suggest he could succeed outside the Catalan bubble so would represent a Premier League gamble.
Barring a remarkable turnaround, Xabi Alonso is unlikely to be in Spurs' sphere while Oliver Glasner's football would not excite the fans.
Looming behind every decision Spurs make in the coming days is Mauricio Pochettino. The Argentine has made no secret of his desire to return to N17 to complete unfinished business and his podcast appearance this week only heaped that little bit more pressure on Frank.
The Dane praised his predecessor and said that he deserved to have his name chanted by the supporters, but inside he would have been seething at the timing of it all.
Pochettino is the easy win for the Tottenham board and he knows it. He placates the majority of the fanbase and it would finally answer the question of 'what if?' that has lingered around the club amid the spiralling fortunes since his exit.
But the 53-year-old will not be available until deep into the summer, depending on how far USA progress at the World Cup. He cannot commit any time to planning for a season ahead at Spurs when he has so much on his plate for the huge summer tournament.
Ryan Mason, a Pochettino disciple, would make some sense in terms of a handover period but a third caretaker stint and having been burned by his struggles in his first managerial role at West Brom, it's a move that's also fraught with risk.
The closest Pochettino clone in the Premier League currently is Bournemouth's Andoni Iraola, who is understood to have made the final four with Frank in Spurs' managerial shortlist last summer, if a move for the Argentine does not materialise.
It's a problem that only Tottenham can solve themselves. They got themselves into this mess and now they must find a way out.
"I understand the fans' frustration. We are in a position we don’t want to be in and we are working very hard day and night to change," said Frank in his final press conference at Spurs head coach.
"I also think it is a situation now the club has been in, it’s fair to say, for almost two years and at the end of last season as well clearly a pattern that we struggle to manage Europe and the Premier League.
"It’s something me, the team, the club, the players we need to learn to do even better physically and mentally to deal with that."
Frank was right. The Tottenham problem is bigger than him and has been going on longer than his time at the club but there was no evidence to suggest that he was helping turn the Tottenham super tanker, as he called it, in the right direction.
He felt like a captain going down with his ship and that would have been a disaster for Tottenham Hotspur.
