The i Paper

Friday marked 250 days since Raheem Sterling’s last competitive match but that stretch in the wilderness is coming to an end.

Sterling agreed to terminate his Chelsea contract 18 months early and with that termination went a cool £325,000-a-week, which would have banked Sterling another £25m by summer 2027. Instead there is a determination from the 31-year-old to actually play football again.

Arsenal offered the winger his last reprieve, having gone on loan there last season – playing his last match in May 2025 – but there were no takers in the summer as Chelsea looked to offload Sterling and other members of their “Bomb Squad”.

As a free agent he remains an attractive option, so too his willingness to take a pay cut.

Where Sterling could end up

Burnley are said to be keen, where Sterling could link-up with former Manchester City teammate Kyle Walker, while Fulham could offer him the chance to remain in London.

However, intrigue abounds over the reported seven Champions League clubs interested, a list not fully known but one that includes Tottenham Hotspur, who have defied their Premier League form with their performances in Europe.

Sterling’s Big Six bingo card would almost be complete if he joins Spurs, with only Manchester United left.

Spurs supporters are unlikely to warm to the prospect, unless Sterling is there to warm the bench and lend his experience. It hardly screams ambition from the club, either, while if he wants actual warmth he may fancy Italy, where Napoli and Juventus are said to be weighing up a move.

Five other transfers to watch

Jean-Philippe Mateta

The striker’s future has been unclear all January but he looks set to follow Marc Guehi in leaving Crystal Palace.

Jean-Philippe Mateta

Losing Mateta would represent another blow for the FA Cup holders, who are slowly being dismantled with manager Oliver Glasner also off in the summer.

However, selling Mateta now offers Palace their best chance of making a significant fee. His deal expires in summer 2027, and the Eagles hope to get £40m for the France international with AC Milan and Nottingham Forest interested.

Jorgen Strand Larsen

There are complicated moving parts to this window and it appears the fates of Mateta and Strand Larsen are intertwined.

That has put a staggering £50m transfer (that’s £50m per league goal Strand Larsen has scored this season at Wolverhampton Wanderers) on hold for now, with Leeds United also monitoring the striker.

Jesse Lingard

It looks like the 33-year-old is heading back to Europe after he left FC Seoul in December following two seasons at the South Korean side.

Lingard has not played Premier League football for three years, when he was at Nottingham Forest, but the former Manchester United and West Ham United winger has admirers.

He is reportedly considering offers from clubs in both the Premier League and Italy’s Serie A.

Harry Wilson

A fine Premier League season has seen the 28-year-old winger score eight times for Fulham, and now both club and player have a decision to make.

The Welshman’s contract expires in the summer, and amid reported interest from Aston Villa, Everton, Leeds United and Sunderland, Fulham must either reluctantly sell for a fee in the coming days or accept he is leaving for free at the end of the season. That is unless they can tie him down to a new deal.

Your next read

Omar Marmoush

The revolving door at Manchester City rarely slows down and with winger Antoine Semenyo coming in, it could be at the expense of Marmoush.

The Egyptian joined City for £59m last January, but just 550 minutes across all competitions this season – including three Premier League starts – has prompted Marmoush to be linked with a move away.

That said, City boss Pep Guardiola has given Marmoush a start in their most recent league and Champions League games. Chucking him in the shop window amid talk of Spurs, Aston Villa and interest from Turkey? Perhaps.

When Thomas Frank was appointed, Tottenham would not have envisaged him fielding the same questions as Ange Postecoglou was a year ago.

Frank’s predecessor dismissed the notion that Spurs could be relegated as “ridiculous hysteria”– but instead of retreating this season, the idea has only gained legs.

Are Spurs too big to go down? Saturday’s draw with Burnley left them eight points above the relegation zone, a gap narrowed by defeat to 18th-placed West Ham the preceding weekend.

Frank’s call for “calm heads” is certainly in his interests. The obvious reaction would be to sack him. Instead the board have held their nerve during a run of one win in eight league games.

Over the next six weeks Crystal Palace, engulfed in a doom loop of their own, are the only bottom-half club they face.

Upcoming fixtures (Premier League)

Is it possible Spurs take zero points from that run? That is possibly a glass-half-empty reading.

They have beaten City in eight of their last 15 meetings, Newcastle have won twice on the road all season and Manchester United have spent another season in crisis despite the recent upturn under Michael Carrick.

Why Spurs are in freefall

A more optimistic reading is that due to the chaotic nature of this season’s table, Spurs are also just nine points off the top four. All the same you will struggle to find many of their supporters, who spent the weekend making eyes at Mauricio Pochettino and singing “Frank out”, interpreting the situation that way.

That is not just pure pessimism. Since mid-November, Tottenham have dropped 11 points from winning positions. Palace, Burnley and Sunderland are the only teams below them in the form table over the last six weeks.

After their 10th game of the season on 1 November, they were in the Champions League places. Since then they have picked up 1.09 points per game; on the same trajectory until the end of the season, they would finish with 44 points.

Over the same period West Ham are picking up 1.2 points per game – continued, that would earn them 38 points. So, not enough to overtake their London rivals, but enough to give them a scare.

Depleted numbers

January has done little to help rectify the slide. Lucas Bergvall, Rodrigo Bentancur, Mohammed Kudus, Ben Davies, Richarlison, and Joao Palhinha have joined long-term absentees James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski on the sidelines. Spurs have made two signings – midfielder Conor Gallagher and left-back Souza – while a move for Liverpool’s Andy Robertson has collapsed.

The pursuit of two-time Premier League winner Robertson was a bid to import leadership into the dressing room. It was expected across the board that this was always going to be a quiet window for most clubs, not least because so many are hamstrung by profitability and sustainability rules, but in north London it has meant squad numbers are being depleted and not growing.

None of this is good news for Frank, who has a number of unhappy players in his ranks – Mathys Tel and Randal Kolo Muani among them – and with fans in open mutiny over his style of football.

In Postecoglou’s final season, Spurs finished 17th and suffered 22 defeats – the most any side has managed without going down in Premier League history.

There is no such thing as any club being too big to go down, though people said it repeatedly of Aston Villa and Newcastle in their own relegation seasons. Nobody is seriously expecting that fate at Tottenham. And yet the fact they are engaging in “six-pointers” with Burnley and West Ham (and winning neither) suggests it is creeping closer than you might think.

If the Premier League did points for comedic value, slapstick Spurs would have catapulted up the table against Bournemouth. The manager seen sipping his Espresso from a tiny cup with the Arsenal badge on it. The captain, Cristian Romero, accusing the board of “lies” on Instagram while the players bickered with their supporters in the ground.

Ange Postecoglou may have got it wrong when he suggested that at Tottenham Hotspur, whenever there looks to be light at the end of the tunnel, it turns out to be an oncoming train. By that logic, their demise would have been hard to foresee until it was too late.

The reality is they have been careering in plain sight towards scenes like these over years. The symbolic bulldozing of White Hart Lane coincided with the dismantling of almost everything else that made Tottenham one of the most promising and exciting clubs in the country.

The rot set in through complacency and an understandable giddiness at their unexpected success; nobody expected Mauricio Pochettino to guide them into two title races in 2016 and 2017. What mattered was what they did next and they chose to do nothing.

The wage structure

They missed out on the kind of additions that would have won them the title – Sadio Mane a prime example – because they would not pay them what they wanted. Between 2017-2019, there was an 18-month period when they did not sign a single player. They reached the Champions League final that year but in the league, won one away game in the second half of the season.

The refusal to compete with the rest of the Big Six on wages is the single biggest policy that has held them back, given the significant outlay on transfer fees. Unless it changes, it will remain impossible to compete for the top tier of talent.

What type of manager do they want?

Should Thomas Frank depart, they are likewise fishing in a different pool to Manchester United and Chelsea. Frank has had a lot of bad luck, both in terms of injuries and not always picking up the points his side have probably deserved. It is still the case that attracting Oliver Glasner, Andoni Iraola or any other in-demand head coach is going be a challenge.

It ultimately comes down to what Spurs are trying to be. After sacking Antonio Conte, there were pointed remarks about the new manager needing to embody a romantic fantasy of Tottenham DNA. They went for Postecoglou, then veered in the opposite direction stylistically with Frank.

Selling Brennan Johnson, a player out of favour, will make sense if Frank is still the manager in a year’s time. Less so if he is not.

Arsenal-cup-gate was a silly, unintentional mishap. It only carried so much weight because Frank’s relationship with the fans had already been wounded by five defeats in 10 league games and the fact they have twice this season recorded their lowest xG in a game on record. At Brentford, their own supporters spent the game singing about how boring they were.

Affordable tickets

Internally, it is acknowledged how low the mood among fans seems to have become. It manifests in both the atmosphere at home games and plenty of empty seats at Champions League matches – though the latter is partly down to the cost of the tickets.

Tottenham’s are some of the most expensive season-tickets in the country – many seats costing over £1200 – which is not easy to rectify once it is baked into long-term planning. Cheaper European tickets – many are currently £50-60 – would at least be a goodwill gesture that might help to stem the toxicity.

Your next read

Focus on the academy

The other obvious PR win is a renewed commitment to bringing through academy talent. Luca Williams-Barnett, Dane Scarlett and Callum Olusesi are the closest to breaking through. There have been a string of young players who have not made the cut – Troy Parrott, Marcus Edwards – but who have gone on to be successful elsewhere.

Brentford 0-0 Tottenham

GTECH COMMUNITY STADIUM – It says much about the mood among Tottenham fans that midway through a miserable dirge against Brentford, they were reduced to chanting about a miscellany of random ex-players. The medley featured everyone from Jermain Defoe to Danny Rose – and tellingly, none of the current squad.

“Boring, boring Tottenham.” “We want our money back.” The damning death knells of an increasingly grey, depressing campaign. Thomas Frank, heckled and jeered at the final whistle. Only when he saluted the Brentford supporters did he receive a warm embrace of applause. At the ground where he once was God, there is sympathy and bewilderment at how quickly it is all unravelling for him.

Zero big chances. Out-fought for possession. One corner. Admirably, and presumably knowing what the reaction might be, Frank still made his way to the away end to acknowledge the travelling crowd. It was then that the air turned sour and the gallows humour dried up.

Frank cannot continue like this if the atmosphere does not detoxify fast. It was fan dissent that ultimately did for Nuno Espirito Santo, his substitutions mercilessly booed. By the end of Antonio Conte’s reign, Spurs fans had taken to singing Mauricio Pochettino’s name in the middle of games.

The current incumbent insisted afterwards that “it’s not that we don’t want to play offensive or attacking football… of course the offensive part needs to be better, there’s no two ways about that”.

If he is to salvage anything from this uninspiring season, he needs to be backed in this month’s transfer window.

There is now another £35m knocking about as Brennan Johnson prepares to join Crystal Palace. It only took two minutes for Spurs fans to start serenading the spectre of their departing Europa League hero. Forever immortalised in the image of those dark glasses masking his post-Bilbao bender, Johnson’s goal in the final against Manchester United has earned him a place in north London folklore.

Eight months on, his alma mater drew another hopeless blank. In a head vs heart sense, the Johnson deal makes a lot of sense – he started less than a third of league games under Frank. It does mean, however, that for the third year in a row, the club has sold its top scorer from the previous season, following in the footsteps of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min.

That alone does not explain the ongoing thirst for creativity. Frank started at Brentford with seven defensively inclined players. There was the return of the much protested against Joao Palhinha-Rodrigo Bentancur combination, their first start together since that appalling north London derby defeat.

Your next read

Far too often, Spurs simply do not look like scoring. And in the quiet of another pedestrian outing, it was easy to recall why the sight of Johnson loitering around the far post will be so sorely missed. It was never about the manner of his goals, but their significance.

Aa they search for a replacement who can challenge Mohammed Kudus for his spot, there are fears something of a “Tottenham tax” will come attached to creative players in the market, given the urgent need. RB Leipzig’s Yan Diomande is one such target but he is being monitored by a number of clubs and the Bundesliga outfit are holding out for more than £60m. That is a sizable fee for a 19-year-old unproven in the Premier League.

Frank is also reluctant to overload his squad when Dejan Kulusevski, Dominic Solanke and James Maddison would all be first choice upon their return from injury. The other obvious source of succour is the academy – here, Luca Williams-Barnett, its brightest current prospect, was not even named on the bench. Two goalkeepers were. Williams-Barnett reacted to that decision with a cryptic Instagram post as he watched along unhappily; at least he will not have been alone in that.

Crystal Palace 0-1 Tottenham (Gray 42’)

You have to hand it to Tottenham Hotspur, for few other teams approach every Premier League match with the reverence it deserves, entertaining each opponent as if humbly prostrating themselves before a prime Barcelona.

Perhaps it was the blaugrana of Crystal Palace shirts that caused the confusion, but winning ugly is still winning. The simplicity of Frank-ball will still have its deriders but to listen to him speak before kick-off, it all sounded so simple. Target Palace on the break and exploit their glaring weaknesses from set pieces, which after Archie Gray’s first career goal, account for six of their last nine conceded.

Should we ignore the aesthetics, it worked to a tee. The explosion of joy from Gray after heading in from Pedro Porro’s in-swinging corner was the antidote needed to stem the toxicity. Spurs’ hit rate from the dead ball is the most successfully imported weapon from Frank’s Brentford days. An even greater positive was the impact of his substitutions.

Much like the plain slice of bread which mops up the Full English, none of Joao Palhinha, Radu Dragusin, Brennan Johnson or Wilson Odobert often get the credit they deserve. They do not always add glitz but here put a gloss on what had been another underwhelming display, two disallowed Richarlison goals adding to Spurs’ frustrations.

The Odobert cameo was especially instructive. With a conventional left-winger on that side, Spurs were a different proposition to the first hour, when the role had been filled by Randal Kolo Muani. They were encumbered by the absence of the suspended Xavi Simons, their most effective (fit) creator, though it was of course entirely self-inflicted following a moment of madness against Liverpool.

It is not unusual that their first shot on target translated into a goal, not least because in many games Spurs only manage the one. Without such a ratio they might never score at all. The sparsity of chances may be looked down upon, yet how Oliver Glasner would love a conversion rate like that.

Spurs’ success required a horrorshow in front of goal from Palace as Jean-Philippe Mateta, Justin Devenny and Maxence Lacroix peppered Guglielmo Vicario’s goal to no avail. Little wonder they are the league’s lowest converters of expected goals (xG). Frank’s side cannot usually afford to be so generous.

Your next read

Until the last 20 minutes, Palace were able to control the game and it was only their profligacy that let Tottenham off the hook. That leaves two ways of interpreting a vital victory for Frank – strategic, or chaotic?

That question sums up the ambivalence towards his reign so far. Interpreting its intricacies is becoming ever more difficult for a new-look board, minus the swinging axe of Daniel Levy.

Frank was at pains this week to point out that Spurs are not really a Champions League team, and are only playing in that competition because they won the Europa League. He reiterated that they finished 17th last term. In that light, it is becomes easier to accept that even the wins should feel excruciating.

The year will be remembered for the glorious ventures in Bilbao over an appalling league record, but it ends with a toss-up of what Tottenham want to be. The Overton window of what kind of performances are acceptable shifted long before Frank’s entrance. But what matters is what works, and these are the realities of the project they have embarked on.

The first job of any new Tottenham Hotspur manager is to avoid comparisons with Juande Ramos.

Months after ending a long trophy drought, the Spurs side of 2008-09 veered into infamy by taking just two points from the opening eight games. Thomas Frank’s tally of 22 from 16 matches is now their lowest at this stage of the season since that nadir which saw Ramos sacked.

Patience is understandably wearing thin. Originally a Daniel Levy appointment, Frank’s fate now rests in the hands of a revamped board spearheaded by the Lewis family – Vivienne, brother Charles and son-in-law Nick Beucher – alongside chief executive Vinai Venkatesham and non-executive chairman Peter Charrington.

There is sympathy with Frank, who took over a side which finished 17th under Ange Postecoglou and has been derailed by injuries to James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke. It is also accepted that only Wolves players are making more individual errors leading to goals and that cannot be pinned solely on the manager.

Frank insisted after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest at the City Ground that there was “no quick fix” but his job is under mounting scrutiny.

The ‘Brentford mindset’

There is often a condescension towards “midtable managers” in the Premier League, the kind which used to be reserved for David Moyes and Sean Dyche. Old-school British coaches are back in vogue; instead suspicion now abounds towards managers who have punched above their weight but have yet to work with one of the “Big Six”.

That said, Frank has given ammunition to critics who believe he is still operating with the same mindset as at Brentford, going into games believing his side will not have much of the ball. Starting the north London derby with five defenders and a double-pivot backfired spectacularly and laid bare a lack of confidence which has become ingrained. So did the substitutions at 2-0 down against Forest – rather than Brennan Johnson, Mathys Tel or Wilson Odobert, Frank turned to Ben Davies, Joao Palhinha and Lucas Bergvall.

The axis

It explains why Frank has relied on midfielders whose strengths lie out of position. Rodrigo Bentancur and Palhinha have started together nine times in the league, with Spurs winning just 33 per cent of those games. It has left the No 10 isolated – Xavi Simons the biggest victim – and has limited opportunities from open play. Nor is it reserved for trips to Manchester City and Arsenal – the same approach was taken in a 1-1 home draw with Wolves. It is hard to argue it has made them more solid either – they have conceded more goals than at the same stage last season.

The xG

Twice this season Spurs have recorded their lowest xG (expected goals) in a match since records began. Against Chelsea and Arsenal they registered 0.05 and 0.07 xG respectively, but they have managed below 1xG on 10 separate occasions. And it matters particularly because Frank himself is a stickler for the metric. In a recent Sky Sports interview, he discussed discouraging players from taking long-range, lower-quality chances.

Relations with players

There is no serious suggestion yet that Frank has lost the dressing room, but there have been exchanges belying his insistence that the group are united. Micky van de Ven and Djed Spence appeared to snub him at full-time against Chelsea, and Spence reacted angrily again to being taken off at Forest. The rest looked despairing at Ibrahim Sangare’s goal from 20 yards out – a shot he was able to take despite there being eight outfield Spurs players in and around the box.

The rotations

Only twice all season have Spurs named unchanged line-ups in the Premier League. With the exception of Yves Bissouma, who is likely to leave in January after another video of the midfielder inhaling nitrous oxide, only three fit members of the senior squad are not into double figures for league appearances. They are Gray, Randal Kolo Muani, whose campaign has been disrupted by injury, and Ben Davies.

The fans

There have been two occasions when tensions have boiled over – against Manchester United, when Frank’s decision to leave on Richarlison and take off Simons was jeered, and when he told supporters they were “not true Tottenham fans” for booing Guglielmo Vicario for his error against Fulham.

Frank spoke with similar clarity at Brentford, but has not built up the good will to enjoy the same authority with a fanbase who are yet to warm to him.

Your next read

Who isn’t playing

Despite their attacking problems, last season’s top scorer Johnson – a cult hero ever since his winner in the Europa League final – has started just six league games and is now beginning to attract interest from Crystal Palace, among others. Simons has started just over half of Spurs’ Premier League games since his arrival, often on the left rather than in his preferred role as a No 10 – that is partly a tactical choice, partly an inevitable consequence of failing to properly replace Son Heung-min.

There is still an intention behind the scenes at Tottenham to persevere with the project, but it is accepted that things have to change quickly. It is not only the number of defeats but the manner of them.

Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Brentford (Richarlison 25′, Simons 43′)

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM – “Now to watch Spurs win. It’s happening. Trust me.”

Naturally I’m happy to share a WhatsApp message I sent to a Tottenham Hotspur-supporting friend ahead of kick-off on Saturday because, for once, a hunch was correct.

In this, the stoppable force vs movable object derby, where the team with the second worst home record in the Premier League hosted the team with the joint-second worst record away, it felt as though something had to give.

And that something was Brentford giving the embattled Thomas Frank the kindest of reunion gifts, allowing this ground to go through the repertoire of hits at full-time as if it had never been their haunted home.

“Sometimes it just suddenly clicks,” Frank said after Tottenham celebrated just a second league win of the season at home.

“The team has been out of sync in some stages, but today a lot of the players were on the same page. We played with pace, penetration, and were unpredictable. It was just a complete performance.”

And a week on from booing one of their own – Vicario the subject of jeers during the loss to Fulham – this was the day where Spurs fans made amends.

There were extra-loud cheers for Spurs’ goalkeeper when his name was called out in the line-up before kick-off, a moment that made Frank feel “warm inside” after he had previously, and rightly, voiced his ire.

This reconciliation helped contribute towards a feel-good factor before a ball was even kicked, with the atmosphere boosted by Arsenal’s lunchtime loss at Aston Villa as well.

Recognising another game was a clean slate upon which a platform could be built on, Spurs’ fans and players were finally a cohesive unit.

“There was a fantastic energy between them,” Frank added, remarking that a positive atmosphere is far easier to manifest after a victory.

Now there is a real chance for momentum. Spurs welcome Son Heung-min back to this stadium on Tuesday, where the former captain will have a “proper chance to say goodbye” after leaving for Los Angeles FC in the summer while the club were on tour in South Korea.

This return will see Son take to the pitch ahead of kick-off against Slavia Prague, and the timing feels perfect in terms of maintaining this new-found positivity that simply has to last to give Spurs any chance of a deep run in Europe or a top-four push in the league.

And while Son is here, it would be wise to make the most of him. Spurs finally looked capable in his absence in attack against Brentford, but the fact this was a rarity in terms of their overall campaign so far means he can still have a role to play.

A modern great, their fourth highest goalscorer of all time, is back for some closure, and if Son has a moment with the squad, a beeline for the forwards could certainly help their cause.

In particular because right now they are on and upwards’ trajectory. Against Brentford there was plenty to enjoy, with Xavi Simons in particular shining and finally scoring his first goal.

He played like a man with a point to prove, and with Richarlison on the scoresheet too, this felt fitting in a period where Spurs will want to show they have gotten over Son’s exit for good – at the very time he waves a belated farewell.

Whatever lies at the heart of Tottenham’s problems the answer is not sacking Thomas Frank.

Certainly not in the next few weeks, whatever the run of results that follows Tuesday night’s niggly draw at St James’ Park.

A mid-season sacking might satisfy some of the bloodlust in the Spurs fanbase but it will not address the fundamental issues that are eroding the club’s ability to compete at the top of the Premier League – and it will not improve the club in the short term either.

Take one look at the managerial market right now and suggest an alternative that wipes the floor with Frank or an appointment you’d trust Tottenham’s hierarchy to pull off. Is it Andoni Iraola at Bournemouth, the high priest of high press whose reputation in the game is sky high?

Well, perhaps. But the Cherries’ recent form is hit and miss and The i Paper has been told categorically that Iraola would not walk out on Bournemouth in the middle of the season. Any move for him would need to wait until the end of the campaign, leaving Tottenham with an interim boss like Michael Carrick while they tread water.

Oliver Glasner is in a similar position. Crystal Palace probably can’t contain his ambition but does he jump ship before May? Perhaps Spurs are kidding themselves if they think their poisoned chalice is enough to entice a manager who will have options at the end of the season.

Marco Silva is keen and a new contract remains unsigned but Fulham sit in the same bracket that Brentford did. He has more of a track record of turning out attacking teams than Frank did but he would face the same credibility battle that the Dane does.

Do you go elite or overseas? Tottenham tried the former and got burned with Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, who both appeared to believe they were doing the club a favour by accepting gargantuan wages without ever threatening to repeat the success they had enjoyed elsewhere. If there is a standout manager waiting in the wings overseas, the current bookmakers’ odds do not reflect it.

So where does that leave you? Time to dig in and ride out the recent storm. Which is a fairly accurate reflection of Tottenham’s performance at Newcastle, which was a tough watch for long spells but illustrated a few things we hadn’t seen in the four game losing run.

Granted they created very little in a first half where they were clinging on. But Cristian Romero’s heroic late contribution hinted that there may be life left in a season that felt like it was unravelling fast.

We’re told the dressing room is unconvinced by aspects of Frank’s gameplan and they certainly lacked fluency for spells at Newcastle. But this was not the performance of a group of players that have lost faith in the manager. Instead it felt like a team low on confidence finding a way out of a desperate situation – and hinting that a corner may yet be turned.

Your next read

Frank can help himself, of course. He needs to cut out the constant rotation and at some point Spurs are going to have to attempt to play on the front foot consistently again. It is a month since they have had a shot on target in the first half – a damning stat that continued against Newcastle.

But there wasn’t a whole lot wrong with the defensive fundamentals and you haven’t always been able to say that about Tottenham sides at St James’ Park. They rode out the pressure where in previous seasons they have folded.

Frank needs time and Spurs need to give him it. The brutal truth is that they don’t have much choice.

Tottenham 1-2 Fulham (Kudus 59’ | Tete 4’, Wilson 6’)

At the recent Eubank-Benn fight, there was the peculiar sight of people enjoying themselves in the home areas of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Once the football took centre-stage again, supporters were reduced to booing their own goalkeeper.

The most ludicrous calamities of Angeball did not compete with the opening exchanges of the defeat to Fulham, a side not exactly known for scoring goals. It turns out they do not have that trouble when Kenny Tete is left in yards of space, or indeed when Guglielmo Vicario goes marauding and playing passes down the line to allow Harry Wilson to curl one into his empty net.

In six muddled minutes, Thomas Frank was pushed to the brink.

The toxicity that followed, Vicario’s next two touches jeered then ironically cheered for making a basic clearance, marked a new low in this tumultuous, miserable season.

Frank insisted the booing was “unacceptable” and those behind it “can’t be true Tottenham fans”. Vicario’s error was not on the manager, nor really on the defenders the goalkeeper berated for failing to get back onto the line. Micky van de Ven spared him further blushes with a last-ditch tackle when Samuel Chukwueze had rounded him. For the home crowd, they had seen this kind of display one too many times.

There are few immediate alternatives to the Italian stopper. There are reservations about deputy Antonin Kinsky’s long-term future. Brandon Austin has only ever made one senior appearance for the club, while Alfie Whiteman has quit football to become a photographer.

The strange paradox of Vicario is that he is capable of producing heroic performances like the one against Monaco in the Champions League, his eight stops from all angles earning an unlikely point. The tragicomedy at Arsenal began with a point-blank stop from Declan Rice before conceding four. Before that came the error at Brighton, the scrutiny over his positioning at Leeds.

His future had not been seen as under threat in January, when Spurs are expected to spend. That may change.

In the 29-year-old’s first season, the main question marks were over his set pieces. It was suggested he was not getting enough protection from referees. There have been fraught moments with fans before as they grew frustrated over his distribution. It never felt quite so poisonous as this and it is impossible not to wonder what it will do to his confidence.

Frank has to consider what to do next, not least because his goalkeeper seems to represent the broken spirit of a dressing room so used to these performances here that half-time and full-time torrents of abuse are routine. Fulham fans, by contrast, taunted their old Brentford nemesis with chants of “sacked in the morning” and his team, equally damningly, with “champions of Europe? You’re taking the piss”.

Your next read

Vicario is but one symptom of all this. The boos were at him and yet somehow around him, a venting of fury at a team who have won one league game at home – against Burnley – all season.

Frank’s system was again too narrow and overloaded on the right. Spurs failed to register a shot on target until Mohammed Kudus’ superb half-volley in the 59th minute – just as it was with Richarlison’s freak goal at the Emirates.

Paris Saint-Germain 4-3 Tottenham Hotspur (Vitinha 45′, 53′, 76′ pen, Ruiz 59′, Pacho, 65′, Hernandez red card 90+3′ | Richarlison 35′, Kolo Muani 50′, 72′)

PARC DES PRINCES — That’s more like it. That’s the way Tottenham Hotspur supporters want their team to play. Fledgling starlets fronting the youthful revolution.

On paper, conceding five goals in defeat is hardly the panacea to Spurs’ recent ailments. But, as has been said in many a north London pub in the past few days, there is a way to lose, and in Paris, to the vivaciousness of European champions Paris Saint-Germain, this was it.

Sunday’s defeat to Arsenal saw the side of Thomas Frank that Tottenham supporters have fervently insisted they never want to bear witness to again: death by near-zero passes.

Frank had to take a long, hard look at himself. His beliefs. His ethos he lives by – building a team in his way, from the bottom up.

Sunday had to be an aberration. Not the result, the manner of the performance. One of the myriad damning stats to emerge from Sunday’s derby disaster was that in the opening period, Spurs made the fewest number of passes in the opposition half ever recorded in the first half of a Premier League match since such records began just over 20 years ago.

Wednesday’s trip to Paris represented the most opportune platform Frank could have wished for. No better a stage to rethink the formula, wipe the slate clean.

The Champions League has been a happy hunting ground for Frank so far, with Spurs one of four sides unbeaten going into a match against the might of PSG that, given this rather tepid new Champions League format negates much jeopardy, gave the Dane what is commonly known as a free hit, licence to swing the bat.

Defeat wouldn’t end hopes of a top-eight finish, with three very winnable games to come. Victory would be memorable, if only for a few days afterwards.

A positive performance regardless of the outcome however was imperative for Frank and his managerial reputation, given the vitriol that has come his way amid some of the most turgid attacking displays the Premier League has ever seen from Spurs of late.

And, after everyone had recovered from one of those seizure-inducing light shows at the Parc des Princes, endeavour was the order of the day from a Spurs side bustling with youthful exuberance.

“It was the reaction I wanted from the players,” Frank said. “We’ve been working very hard on that, the players, the staff, me, to make sure that we responded well and bounced back because that’s crucial after a bad performance.

“Today I saw more identity of the team I want to create, we want to create. Much more character, personality, aggressiveness.”

Gone was that stifling five-man defence. In its place came the effervescence of Lucas Bergvall and the fleet of foot of Archie Gray to give the Spurs midfield some nicely balanced vibrancy.

When Spurs finally composed themselves, their quality did show through. Those two fledgling talents in midfield played a huge part in setting up Richarlison’s aesthetically pleasing opener – nothing more than the visitors deserved.

What they needed to do was to get to half-time in front. They did all they could to achieve such, but when you are facing the European champions, who possess some of the best midfielders in the world, give them an inch and they will take a mile.

Vitinha’s sumptuous strike from a quickly-taken corner caught Spurs off guard, and it could not have been better timed for the home side, right on the cusp of half-time.

The Spurs of four days ago would have gone into their shell and crumbled. But Randal Kolo Muani bulleted the visitors back in front – the striker’s first goal for Spurs, against his parent club.

Those inches were still on offer down the other end and in the blink of an eye, the result in one of Spurs’ best recent performances was taken away from them in 12 unhinged second-half minutes.

Nonetheless, a thrilling defeat suggests there is some life in Frank’s project after all.

“We all want to play entertaining football, but sometimes you might have to adapt that for certain games and we’re 100 per cent with the coaching staff and the manager,” Gray said.

“Sunday was so tough, but we can take positives into Fulham.”

It would be very, very Spurs to now go onto lose, in the limpest possible way. For his own sake, Frank cannot allow that to happen. Not after Paris.