Sporting Life

Replacing Ange Postecoglou – the man who had delivered Spurs their first trophy in 17 years via a thrilling Europa League campaign – was no small task.

Yet, within weeks, Frank has begun to reshape Tottenham into a more coherent force, while preserving much of the attacking energy that made them so breathless under his predecessor.

Postecoglou’s tenure ended ignominiously. Despite winning the Europa League, Spurs endured a catastrophic 2024/25 Premier League season, finishing in a dismal 17th place and ultimately ending with his dismissal, a decision confirmed shortly after the final whistle of their continental triumph over Manchester United.

Spurs delivered a surprisingly resolute defensive performance to see off United 1-0 in the Europa League final, but it was an outlier of a performance that masked the chaos that saw them concede 67 league goals – the fourth-worst in the division.

For all the joy of their European run, Postecoglou’s style was unsustainable and Daniel Levy pulled the trigger.

Frank officially took the reins on 12 June 2025, signing a contract through 2028. He arrived with a reputation for pragmatism and organisation, honed during seven years at Brentford, where he helmed the club to sustained success on a modest budget.

“We are developing a way of playing that is a little bit more pragmatic,” he had admitted near the end of the 2022/23 season in west London, and that same balance between entertainment and discipline is already visible in N17.

There have been early signs of a tactical synthesis. Frank has retained the attacking verve Spurs fans grew to love under Postecoglou, while grafting on defensive discipline and smarter transitions.

The shape is less reckless, the pressing more calculated, the counter-press less kamikaze. A team that previously chased shadows now looks like they know where the shadows will fall.

A striking affirmation came in mid-August in the UEFA Super Cup against Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain. Spurs took an early advantage, heading into the final stages 2-0 up via impeccable set-piece finishes from Micky van de Ven and new captain Cristian Romero. Their dominance was manifest in aerial control and tactical shape – a hallmark of Frank’s coaching.

Despite conceding late goals from Lee Kang-in and Goncalo Ramos and ultimately losing 4-3 on penalties, the spirit and strategy on display were promising. Frank himself was quick to emphasise the positive, stating how proud he was of his players’ bravery and structure, calling their display a “special operation”.

Even PSG coach Luis Enrique conceded, “For 80 minutes we didn’t deserve that, I think Tottenham deserved to win the match.”

Even more eye-catching was the opening day win of the 2025/26 Premier League season: a commanding 3-0 demolition of Burnley. New signing Mohammed Kudus, arriving from West Ham for around £55 million, has instantly injected quality.

Kudus registered two assists against the Clarets, slaloming through the away side’s backline with the kind of balance and swagger that Spurs fans used to associate with departed former captain Son Heung-min at his peak.

His press resistance, ability to carry the ball 30 yards under pressure and willingness to commit defenders already make him the transitional release valve Frank’s system thrives on.

'The fulcrum of a new identity'

The Spurs revolution, though already well underway, looks poised for another jolt of brilliance with the widely anticipated arrival of Eberechi Eze from Crystal Palace for a fee reported at £60 million.

Eze brings Premier League-proven quality, creativity and versatility – precisely the kind of playmaking backbone Tottenham need with James Maddison ruled out due to an ACL injury for the 2025-26 season.

Eze’s trajectory at Palace has been steep and consistent. In 2022/23, he scored 10 goals and added four assists in the Premier League. In 2023/24, despite injury setbacks, he managed 11 goals and four assists in 27 appearances.

And in 2024/25, he contributed eight goals and eight assists in 34 games, creating 59 chances — one of the highest tallies outside the traditional top six.

That output is not just numbers on a spreadsheet. Eze passes the eye test every week. He ranked among the league’s top ten for successful dribbles per 90 (2.8) and averaged progressive carries into the final third once every 12 minutes last season.

For Palace, he was both conductor and soloist, capable of dropping deep to knit attacks or ghosting past three defenders to break lines.

His skill set – dribbles, creativity, decision-making in tight spaces – is the sort you’d build an attack around if crafting a modern No.10 or advanced No.8. Frank, building a more flexible system, will relish Eze’s ability to play both centrally and out wide, whether on the left or right flank.

That versatility mitigates the void left by Maddison, allowing for multiple tactical set-ups while ensuring the creative spark remains.

Tottenham were joyously chaotic under Postecoglou. Under Frank they already look structured, disciplined, and still entertaining. Kudus adds a new string of pace, flair and directness. Eze, if his signing goes through, would add polish, end product and tactical malleability.

That’s not just two shiny new players; that’s the fulcrum of a new identity.

A top-seven finish is now a reasonable target. And with Eze pulling strings alongside the likes of Kudus, a rejuvenated Richarlison, Dejan Kulusevski and Brennan Johnson,

Spurs suddenly have a creative depth that makes even the top-four conversation feel plausible.

Frank’s Spurs don’t yet look like finished contenders. But they look like a team with a plan. And after the mess of last season, that is revolutionary enough.

This is the Frank era. This is Spurs with swagger. And Eze looks set to be the player who supercharges it.

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All the preparatory groundwork and analysis was for nothing. When the theoretical becomes reality, when the purity of the emotion hits, everything changes.

Ange Postecoglou’s second-season promise has become legendary. His absurd tactical journey is now a rich, folkloric part of Tottenham history. The painful journey is recast as glorious, romantic, inevitable.

He is a champion and a man entirely vindicated, so much so he even pulled off an audacious reframing of the 2024/25 season after the game, merrily rewriting history.

“I just had this thing inside me, that finishing third wasn’t going to change this football club,” he told TNT Sports after the game.

“The only thing that was going to change this football club was us winning something.”

The Premier League never really mattered, it turns out. This was all part of the master-plan, a deep and unshakable belief only Postecoglou, messianic, could see.

Ange is no clown.

And it’s a convincing pitch, not just because Spurs’ tactical ideologue has shown with gritty backs-to-the-wall Europa League knockout performances that he is willing to adapt, but because there is something about winning silverware that is instantly, magically transformative.

Postecoglou said that winning the first trophy “gets the monkey off their back,” creating the conditions for a new football culture. He said he is building a team for the next “four, five, six years”.

He said he wants to stay.

Maybe all of those things are now true. Maybe those things become true simply because the Europa League-winning manager said so, because Ange winning silverware by abandoning Ange-ball is too good a story to be refuted.

But even if it does turn out to be the end and not the beginning, the high point that obliterates all those lows, that will be enough.

Where Ruben Amorim sits in his Man Utd journey is anyone’s guess.

In typical style he was bullish, he was gruesomely honest, after the game. He won’t quit. But he’ll also leave without compensation if that’s what the board want.

It was at best unhelpful, opening the club to questions it does not want to answer.

But they, too, must confront the new reality.

United’s Europa League campaign has always been the life raft, the insulation, the excuse. Not winning it makes the entire process a pointless distraction and leaves Amorim with no cover to hide a miserable and perhaps unforgivable record in his first six months as manager.

He won 24 points from 26 Premier League games in charge. In most seasons that is relegation form.

All talk of an Erik ten Hag hangover, of poor recruitment, of the difficulties changing things mid-season, has subsided. Nothing can explain away a record that bad.

Defeat in the Europa League final merely confirms this is the worst Man Utd season in 50 years - and worst managerial performance, too.

Of course, defeat also means there will be no Champions League cash windfall to make the summer rebuild easier, although that isn’t necessarily a bad outcome.

A cluttered autumn defined by morale-sapping defeats against Europe’s elite would probably have undermined Amorim further, whereas now he can enjoy free midweeks to drill those idiosyncratic tactical demands into muscle memory.

That’s the theory, but the reality will probably be a lot worse.

There is quite simply no example in modern football history of a manager starting this badly and surviving. Some beginnings are just too damaging, and faith in Amorim must already be waning, particularly among a squad that will largely be forced to stay together for lack of interest elsewhere.

Man Utd have endured failure after failure over the last ten years. They’re used to it. And yet until now they always had the cups to soften the landing, had trophy lifts in May to convince the players that dawn was rising.

Not anymore.

Amorim has support from the fans and the board. But cup finals cause ruptures, colouring perceptions that seemed so reasonable right up until the gut punch of defeat.

The morning after the night before, he is dangling by a thread.

Safer gambling

We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.

If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.

Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.