Frank sacked: Why now and who next?

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Athletic FC Podcast
Episode: Frank sacked: Why now and who next?
Date: February 11, 2026
Host: Matt Davis Adams
Guests: Dan Kilpatrick, Seb Stafford-Bloor, Jay Harris (voice note)

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Episode Overview

This episode analyzes Tottenham Hotspur's decision to sack head coach Thomas Frank after a dismal eight months in charge, marked by dire form and a toxic atmosphere. The discussion delves into why the club waited so long to pull the trigger, the depth of Spurs' ongoing structural malaise, likely interim and long-term replacements, and the real threat of relegation. The panel includes in-depth reporting, critical debate, and reflection on Tottenham’s organizational confusion and repeated managerial failure.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Was Thomas Frank Sacked?

Toxicity and Results:

• Frank’s sacking followed just two wins in 17 league matches and a prolonged negative turn in both results and performances.
• Jay Harris highlighted pivotal moments of fan disconnect, notably the November defeat to Chelsea and a January photo controversy (Frank with an Arsenal-branded coffee cup), which further alienated supporters ([02:38]).
• Dumping to Newcastle in his last game was the “final straw,” with fans loudly chanting for his dismissal and against him ([03:45]).

Quote — Jay Harris ([02:38]):
"Frank's final game in charge was a two-nil defeat to Newcastle United on Tuesday. And if you just listen to what the fans were chanting, it was pretty clear that the atmosphere had just become too toxic. They were singing, you're getting sacked in the morning."

Progressively Worse:

• Seb and Dan emphasize that this was “one of those rare moments with a manager where there were no more arguments for carrying on—it just kept getting worse” ([03:57]).
• Home form has been woeful since 2024, underlining that Frank had failed to arrest an existing downward trend rather than being its root cause ([04:54]).

Quote — Dan Kilpatrick ([05:12]):
"Frank did not start the rot at Tottenham. He is not the overall most responsible person for it. That's Daniel Levy, by the way, if you're wondering. But in my opinion, he certainly was accelerating that rot massively."

2. Was Frank Ever a Good Fit?

• From the beginning, his style (pragmatic, defense-first, slow build-up) clashed with Spurs’ historic emphasis on attacking football ([07:12]).
• Most fans and even panelists were skeptical early on; by November/December, "entrenched positions" had already formed against Frank’s methods ([08:38]).
• The panelists point out that hiring Frank seemed like an attempt to scale Brentford’s approach to Spurs—a strategy that rarely works in practice ([07:12]).

Quote — Seb Stafford-Bloor ([07:12]):
"You could kind of understand their logic, which is, I think, a flawed logic... If you scale everything up, you're going to replicate that overperformance on a bigger stage. I don't think there are many examples of that working in practice."

3. Club Culture, Leadership & Communication Breakdown

• The club’s hierarchy is more opaque than ever; with Daniel Levy stepping back, there’s a “frightening” lack of visible leadership and accountability ([10:00]).
• Frank’s media presence was unexpectedly poor: defensive, negative, and realistic but not inspirational ([11:37]).
• Supporters crave optimism and direction—qualities Frank failed to provide, worsening his disconnect ([13:32]).

Quote — Dan Kilpatrick ([11:37]):
"He didn't speak well at Tottenham and I think that was actually a surprise to me. ...he's looked scared to kind of give his opinion and be too strong."

Quote — Seb Stafford-Bloor ([14:03]):
"Football fans don't necessarily want kind of realism all the time. They don't. You want optimism."

4. Mitigating Factors & Parallels

• Frank dealt with persistent injuries and did secure Champions League progression—but the panel sees this as unremarkable given the opposition ([15:32]).
• The problem is bigger than the manager. Spurs’ setup exposes weaknesses in any coach who comes in—Frank just wasn’t a good fit ([17:28]).

Quote — Dan Kilpatrick ([17:28]):
"No manager ever looks as bad as they do when they're about to be sacked by Tottenham or when they've just been sacked by Tottenham."

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The Next Manager: Who Steps In?

(From 20:40)

Interim Options

• There’s “no compelling interim candidate.” Michael Carrick (ex-Spurs, now with Man United) is unavailable, and repeatedly turning to Ryan Mason seems unhelpful ([21:09]).
• Promoted staff like John Heitinga or Justin Cochrane are possible stop-gaps, but lack top-flight head coaching experience ([22:22]).

Long-term/Fantasy Appointments

• The summer managerial market (post-World Cup) is more attractive—possible names: Mauricio Pochettino, Thomas Tuchel, Xabi Alonso ([22:22]).
• Desperate enough to consider available but risky candidates like Roberto De Zerbi ([24:45]).

Quote — Dan Kilpatrick ([25:04]):
"With De Zerbi, I could kind of see that going one of two ways and there being no middle ground, you know, a spectacular charge up the table... or just accelerating the implosion by coming in and realizing what a shambles it is."

The Pochettino Question

• Pochettino would “unite the fanbase,” but nostalgia may be misleading as club culture and squad dynamics have shifted greatly from his tenure ([26:21]).
• Pochettino is busy with the US national team until after the World Cup, making an immediate return unlikely ([26:25]).

Quote — Seb Stafford-Bloor ([27:59]):
"I kind of don't want to ruin that memory because at the moment it's one of the few that I've got left."

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Can Spurs Actually Be Relegated?

(From 30:40)

Relegation Is a Real Threat

• Spurs’ gap to the drop zone is just five points, with their form and performances the worst among the clubs in danger ([31:16]).
• No winnable fixtures for Tottenham in their current state; lack of momentum, clarity, and quality ([33:31]).
• All strengths have evaporated—“no strengths at the moment. Set pieces maybe...can't defend. Goalkeeper form is bad, can't score, can't create” ([33:31]).

Quote — Dan Kilpatrick ([31:16]):
"Yeah, I think you can. It's very realistic... every other team in that battle... have more momentum and are playing better than Tottenham."

Structural Failure: Who's Responsible?

• Top of the blame list: CEO Vinay Venkatesham, the Lewis family (owners), and Daniel Levy ([36:26]).
• Levy’s management culture set conditions for decline. Quoting AVB/Konte: spirals of negativity set in years ago.

Quote — Dan Kilpatrick ([36:26]):
"I do think Levy's still the most responsible person. I think he's laid the foundations. He's kind of set the conditions...a consequence of years of mismanagement from the top."

Is Repair Impossible?

• Seb challenges the narrative of the club as an unfixable “supertank”: Good decisions and accountability could turn things—for now, it’s just a string of repeated bad choices ([38:36]).

Quote — Seb Stafford-Bloor ([38:36]):
"It doesn't take very much not to get back to where you were, but adjust your trajectory… The idea that Spurs are heading towards inevitable doom... it's nonsense. Absolute nonsense."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "[Thomas Frank] wasn't a solution in any way, shape or form, and he was only making things worse." — Dan Kilpatrick ([05:12])
• "If you scale everything up, you're going to replicate that overperformance on a bigger stage. I don't think there are many examples of that working in practice." — Seb Stafford-Bloor ([07:12])
• "No manager ever looks as bad as they do when they're about to be sacked by Tottenham." — Citing Jack Pitt-Brooke via Dan Kilpatrick ([17:28])
• "A team with no strengths at the moment. Set pieces maybe, pretty good at attacking set pieces, not very good at defending set pieces, but pretty good at attacking set pieces. Can't defend, can't score goals, can't create chances..." — Seb Stafford-Bloor ([33:31])
• "Levy's still the most responsible person... what we're seeing now is really the consequence of years of mismanagement from the top." — Dan Kilpatrick ([36:26])
• "It doesn't take very much not to get back to where you were... The idea that Spurs are heading towards inevitable doom that nobody can do anything about and it's just beyond the powers of anybody who works in football, it's nonsense. Absolute nonsense." — Seb Stafford-Bloor ([38:36])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:49 — [Start of Tottenham segment; sacking confirmed]
• 02:38 — [Jay Harris' summary of why Frank was sacked]
• 07:12 — [Discussion of Frank's playing style vs. Spurs DNA]
• 11:37 — [Frank and his communication failures in the media]
• 15:32 — [Mitigating circumstances for Frank? Injuries, Champions League]
• 18:32 — [Spurs’ systemic tendency to expose coaching flaws]
• 20:40 — [Replacement discussion: interim and long-term options]
• 24:45 — [Roberto De Zerbi as a managerial candidate]
• 26:21 — [Pochettino comeback discussion]
• 30:40 — [Relegation battle analysis]
• 36:26 — [Who's at fault? Club leadership and legacy of mismanagement]
• 38:36 — [Is fixing Spurs impossible? Why not—just make good choices]

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Conclusion

The panel agrees: Thomas Frank’s sacking was both inevitable and overdue, but he's just the latest to fail within a club experiencing deep-rooted dysfunction and leadership voids. Spurs’ immediate threat of relegation is serious, and the absence of a forward-thinking contingency plan only increases the anxiety. The episode is a frank, often brutally honest autopsy of Spurs’ present, with open skepticism about any quick fix—while emphasizing that real change must start at the very top.

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For listeners who missed the episode, this summary captures the full context, sharp critiques, and the color of expert debate that framed Tottenham’s latest managerial crisis.

Transcript

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The Athletic fc. Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Matt Davis.

[A]

Adams.

[D]

Thomas Frank has been sacked by Tottenham Hotspur after a miserable eight months in charge. A run of just two wins in 17 Premier League matches spelled the end for the day. So who do they turn to next? And can that person fight off the threat of relegation? Here, for this one we've got Dan Kilpatrick. How you doing, Dan?

[A]

Hello.

[E]

Yeah, very well, thanks, Matt. Yourself?

[D]

Yeah, I'm not too bad. Thank you, Seb. Staff applause with us too. You okay, Seb?

[A]

I've been better. Matt's been quite a dispiriting 24 hours, but I'm alright.

[D]

We'll get into it. We'll get into it. Before we get both of your opinions though, let's get the latest from our Tottenham correspondent Jay Harris.

[F]

Why did Tottenham Hotspur take so long to sack Thomas Frank? He only joined the club last summer as a replacement for Ange Postecoglou. But to be honest, results and performances have been trending in one direction for a long time. And I think the result which will really stand out is November's defeat to Chelsea. Spurs performed really poorly, recorded a really low xg. And then what happened at the end of the game when Micky Van de Ven and Jed Spence walked past Thomas Frank and there was lots of booing from the fans, just hinted at a disconnect between everyone at the club. Another moment which will stand out is January's defeat to Bournemouth when Antoine Semeno scored a last minute winner. That's the game where before kickoff, Thomas Frank was captured by a photographer drinking from a coffee cup which had Arsenal's badge on it. It's an image which the fans could never move away from and it really damaged his relationship with them. Frank's final game in charge was a two undefeated to Newcastle United on Tuesday. And if you just listen to what the fans were chanting, it was pretty clear that the atmosphere had just become too toxic. They were singing, you're getting sacked in the morning. And they were chanting the name of their former head coach, Mauricio Pochettino. Frank had a lot of success at Brentford and at one point he said he had close to the perfect life while he was in charge of the West London side. He his dream move to spurs has turned into a disaster.

[D]

Thank you to Jay for that. Seb, you can look at the stats, you can look at the league table, you can listen to the atmosphere inside the Tottenham Hotspur stadium and all of these things will tell you that this is not a surprise.

[A]

No, Matt, in many ways it's a relief because it's one of the parts of our job that I hate. When someone's job is on the line and everybody's clamming for them to get dismissed. Think about that in your own life. At the same time, there were no more arguments, there were no more arguments in favor of allowing this to continue. Because ordinari think when a team's form suffers a downturn, what are the positives? What are the trends? What are the injuries? What would happen if X, Y and Z were all in place? There was none of that. It just got progressively worse. And the amount of times, I mean, Joe mentioned it in his voice, he talked about how the fans have been singing, you're going to get sacked in the morning. Well, they've been Doing that for a very long time now. And so every game leading up to that Newcastle game on Tuesday night has been like a new low. It was absolutely dreadful. It was virtuous football. More dispiriting, actually. Nobody seemed to have any faith in what they were trying to do during the game, which it's kind of the point of no return.

[D]

One of the key reasons behind this, Dan, has been that home form and the atmosphere there in the stadium. To be fair to Frank there, this predates him, right? They've won five league games at home since November of 2024. Is it the fact that he never found a solution to that which has been one of the main drivers of this decision?

[E]

Yeah, that's part of it. I mean, I think you're right in saying that the poor home form, the poor form in general, the decline, long predated Frank. And we have to bear that in mind when we're having this discussion. Frank did not start the rot at Tottenham. He is not the overall most responsible person for it. That's Daniel Levy, by the way, if you're wondering. But in my opinion, he certainly was accelerating that rot massively. He. He wasn't a solution in any way, shape or form, and he was only making things worse. And I think that's been clear for a long, long time. I certainly think the home form was part of it. Because the impression we've been getting from the club, and this has been clear for literally months now, is that they didn't want to make this decision. They would rather have bumbled through to the end of the season when admittedly there are going to be much more compelling candidates on the market. It's going to be a much more open managerial market, particularly after the World cup in the summer. So the impression I think we were getting from them is that they'd rather have made this decision at the end of the season. But obviously spurs position in the table has made that impossible. They have to act now. They're sleepwalking into a major relegation battle. And yeah, I think the reaction of the fans, the fact that supporters have made it abundantly clear that they blame Frank for this situation. They've literally, after games, I'm not quite sure how it was last night. It was hard for me to see. I watched on telly. But literally, after some home games, they've been applauding the players as they go over and been booing Frank. You know, they couldn't have been making it clearer where they believe the blame lies. And that was a situation that long before this morning and last night had become untenable, really.

[D]

So that Newcastle game proved to be the final straw. Spurs 28 touches in the opposition box, as opposed to Newcastle's 54. It makes you think, Seb, that the style of play was maybe untenable for a Spurs team. But that falls on the people who gave him the job in the first place, wasn't it? Because this was how Thomas Frank played at Brentford? It was not a surprise, the type of football that he employed.

[A]

Yeah, at a basic level, you could kind of understand their logic, which is, I think, a flawed logic. Done very well at Brentford. Overperformed. If you scale everything up, you're going to replicate that overperformance on a bigger stage. I don't think there are many examples of that working in practice. I also think it was an incredibly naive move in the sense that given the way that Tottenham fans have responded to poor football in the past, I think probably of the. The Cesare Mourinho period, which actually by dint of the coronavirus pandemic, meant that a lot of fans weren't there to see it and to voice their displeasure. But the football was at odds with the club's history, and that's a problem. And media types like ourselves, we like to kind of mock fans for saying that. But it's a real thing. If you're paying the prices that Tottenham fans are to go to that stadium to watch football, you want to watch something that's entertaining and you want to watch something that's kind of true to your club's roots. I can completely understand that perspective. And so Thomas Frank, I won't go as far as to say he was on a hiding to nothing, but he never seemed likely to be able to deliver that product. I'm sorry to use the word product, but that is what it is now, given the prices charged, it's not a shock that we are where we are and having this conversation now. The only surprise really is that it wasn't in October or November, because as Dan has mentioned already, it became clear a long time ago and fans kind of formed some pretty entrenched positions even as early as the autumn, that this wasn't going to work. And yeah, there's been nothing to convince anybody otherwise to that point.

[E]

The last time I came on this podcast was actually after the reverse fixture, the first Newcastle game. That was December 2nd. And I remember having quite an animated chat with IO and Charlie Eccleshare about Frank. And I think if you listen back to that now, I probably didn't Go as strong as I'd like to have done because I was trying to be measured and balanced and kind of journalistic. But it was pretty clear then. Yeah, I felt pretty strongly then that Frank was not a Tottenham manager and not the right person for the job. And that was start of December. We are now more than two months on from that point. And you know, the list of team spurs have been in the Premier League since then. Brentford and Crystal palace. That's it. And Brentford was the very next game. I wasn't. I'm not some kind of visionary, you know, Seb would have seen this. Most Tottenham fans would have seen this. And my first real doubts were at the start of November when he, when he kind of showed his hand in a really poor way in the Chelsea game and just kind of set up to try and win set pieces and not do anything and lost one nil. And it was abject. And Jay highlighted that game, I think in his voice note there. This has been so clear for so long to so many people that he is just not a Tottenham manager and not able to scale up. And frankly that we are now in mid February or early to mid February and he's only just been sacked is negligent on behalf of the people running the club. Because this was clear to so many people and it should have been clear to them.

[A]

You know what's important here. I think we've talked a little bit about what Thomas Frank has faced in the stadium and the kind of response that he's received from fans. I think part of that is because so many other people above him are faceless, like a lot of fans. Even as members of media. I don't really know who does what at Tottenham. Like I know vaguely what certain people's job descriptions are, but there are names now attached to the club and I think, I don't know what you do, I don't know what decisions you make, I don't know what expertise you bring to the pile here. And whereas before, we've all known that when things got bad at Tottenham, yes, managers have faced opposition, but Daniel Levy has kind of been the lightning rod because he was kind of the king of Tottenham Hotspur for a long time. He was involved in absolutely everything and now they've kind of gone 180 to the point where no one's responsible. And that's actually far more frightening from a supporter ambition perspective, but also a long term security perspective. We're talking about Thomas Frank being dismissed. Who made that decision, who applied their footballing expertise to make that Decision over the last 24 hours? Don't know. And that's quite weird, right? You wouldn't say that about many other Premier League clubs.

[D]

And that kind of chimes in down with what I wanted to move on to next, which was Frank and the media. Because he was to an extent hung out to dry post match. After the Newcastle game, wasn't he talking about how he was sure he was going to be in position for the Arsenal game in what, 11, 12 days from now. How do you think that he dealt with the media overall? He's always talked very well. Is that how you think that he did at spurs or did the way that he communicated to supporters through the media just make things even more difficult for him?

[E]

He didn't speak well at Tottenham and I think that was actually a surprise to me. I remember being a reporter on the spurs beat last season and when it became clear that postecoglou was going to be sacked and we all had heard the names Frank Silva, Iriola, you know, it was clear that spurs were looking for someone as a kind of counterpoint to Postecogli with more pragmatism, more Premier League experience. And we started discussing the potential candidates as you would. And I think one thing that appealed about Frank is we all thought, oh you know what, he's quite engaging as a speaker. He'll give us a line occasionally. He seems to be quite kind of charismatic and chirpy in front of the press at Brentford and he could be really good for us. And it just hasn't been like that. You know, he. He's looked scared to kind of give his opinion and be too strong. We can see that pretty clearly with the way he's dealt with the Romero situation, I think. And he's consistently put his foot in it as well. I think off the top of my head, just before the Newcastle game, the pre match press conference, I think he said, you know, some players here don't think I'm a great bloke. Which struck me as a really strange thing to say. You know, essentially admitting he was disliked by members of the dressing room. I think his, his reaction to the Arsenal cup thing, which was a really silly thing and you know, totally not his fault. I think it's one of those things that happen. But I think a kind of bigger personality would have. Would have owned that and kind of made that into a joke. But he was quite defensive about that. And look, I don't know Thomas Frank personally, but I do this, this kind of. I sound like I feel like I'M about to sound like a political commentator talking about Starmer, but, like, I do feel like he's a decent guy, like, and, you know, not a. I don't have any kind of personal dislike or sort of vitriol towards him, but I just consistently got the impression that he was out of his depth. And that was true, both kind of tactically in terms of what he was putting out there on the pitch, but also when he was faced with questions by the media.

[A]

Dan, do you think part of it was also he kept talking about he was too realistic at times and too negative and he kept talking about, well, this team finished 17th and this is where we are. And this phrase that has haunted the club for most of the last decade, which is long painful rebuild. People talk about kind of the sort of the open heart surgery that spurs have needed, yet nobody's ever really able to articulate what that means, why it is that that has to happen. And football fans don't necessarily want kind of realism all the time. They don't.

[E]

No, no.

[A]

You want optimism. Right. You want things to cling to and you want to believe in a voyage journey forward. And it was just. It didn't really do that. And it felt like that's a really important ingredient of big club management.

[E]

Yeah. There's two things I'll say on that. Firstly, Frank changed his tune in his first interview with Tottenham manager. He said, we're going to build on what Ange laid, the foundations Ange laid. We're going to build on those successes. And by the end, perhaps, understandably, I don't really blame him for this. It was kind of, well, look, they finished 17th last season. It was a complete mess. It wasn't about building, it was about recovering from what he'd inherited. But look at the contrast in the. The way that Pochettino spoke about the club in his High Performance podcast interview this week and the way Frank spoke about it. Now, I know it's easy for Poch because he's not in the job, but he was talking about Tottenham as a club that should be winning the Champions League and competing for the biggest prizes. And that's always the way he spoke when he was in the dugout as well. You know, he used to consistently, for example, dismiss the League cup and say spurs should be trying to win the Champions League in the Premier League. And supporters want a dream, as you say. That's what fans want to hear, and that's what Tottenham fans really want to hear. They did not want to hear Frank come in and compare them to Brentford and say, oh, you know, that was a really tough game. We had to be wary of what Brentford were offering. We had to defend and you know, we're happy with the point or whatever. That is not the message. And again, it just spoke to this, this kind of idea, I think this, this, this realization that he just wasn't able to scale up into the job from, you know, from Brentford to, to Tottenham.

[D]

Lots of fair criticism of Thomas Frank before we move on from him. Seb, it's probably worth pointing out, isn't it, that he did get them well placed in the Champions League and he's had loads of injuries to deal with, so there is some legitimate mitigation for him to offer. And let's be honest, he's just going to pitch up another mid table Premier League club, if not by the end of this season, at the start of next, in all likelihood.

[A]

Yeah, well, your points back to front, I mean, I would say, yeah, I agree. He'll find another job somewhere and he deserves to because he is a good coach. He just needs to find the right context to do the coaching and he needs to find the right group of players at the right level of the game who are receptive to his methods. The Champions League? No, I don't think so. I don't think that is an accomplishment, which sounds like a very strange thing to say until you look at the games that spurs have gone through to get to where they are. It is literally an accomplishment. Absolutely. But they didn't have to do an awful lot, Matt, to get to the knockout rounds, even to avoid the punishment round. Yeah, and the injuries, sure. But injuries are part of the game. Managing injuries are part of a coach's job. And I also think we kind of, as we said before, as Dan emphasized, Thomas Frank is not the only person responsible for this. So you have to look at the overall management of the club and whether the squad has been stocked properly, whether it's been built properly over the last couple of years, not just over the last six months. And well, there isn't really an argument. There is. It hasn't been. And there was that video at the end of the transfer window where Johann Lange spoke very proudly about, you know, not panicking and not doing anything. And you think, well, maybe a bit of panic wouldn't hurt, you know, maybe a bit of, kind of bit of realism about what the table says and what the performances say and what the trend over the last, not just six months, years say. I don't think any of those criticisms run first so it's just, yeah, I don't really have a summing up. If this is my gcse, you'd write a nice little conclusion, but I'm just hacked off with it.

[E]

And I do just want to say, Max, I've been quite brutal toward Frank there and I know that. But as my colleague Jack Pitt Brook succinctly put on View from the Lane, no manager ever looks as bad as they do when they're about to be sacked by Tottenham or when they've just been sacked by Tottenham. That is true of pretty much every one of his predecessors, with the possible exception of Postecoglou because he'd just won the Europa League, albeit he'd led them to a 17th place finish. The dysfunction is much bigger than Frank and I see a lot of parallels with Nuno, who by the way is really galvanizing West Ham, which I'm sure we'll come on to, which spurs should be very worried about at the moment. But he went on to do really good things in Nottingham Forest. He might end up overseeing a great escape for West Ham and he was a very successful manager for Wolves. And I think the same as you've touched on will be true for Frank. I could see him going to another, for want of a better word, lesser club, mid table club and doing a really good, solid, impressive job and rebuilding his reputation. This is not just about him, but he wasn't a good fit.

[A]

I have a half baked theory in the sense of spurs being the problem. I think the way that spurs have been run over the past 20 years is a very effective way of finding out what the coach's weaknesses are. So when you go to spurs, if you have a flaw, they will find it and you will be exposed as a result of it.

[D]

All right, that's the Frank discussion done. We'll take a little break and come back and talk about who might replace him. This is the Athletic FC podcast with Matt Davis Adams.

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[D]

Spurs now have an extended break before their next match by virtue of their early exit from the FA Cup. Next up, it's the North London Derby against Arsenal on February 22. Somebody will be in place by then. Dan, do you think that it's going to be an interim? I mean, as we've touched on, there's a paucity of available candidates who would take the job on a full time basis. So probably somebody to step in between now and the end of the season. And who might that be? If so?

[E]

Well, this was the decision that Tottenham's owners and board didn't want to have to make because there is no obvious interim candidate to come in. There was a very compelling interim candidate with connections to spurs, but he's now interim manager at Manchester United, Michael Carrick. So he's off the market. Spurs have tried Ryan Mason twice. I don't think in either case he really improved things through no fault of his own and he increased the sense of kind of apathy and drift around the club just really by virtue of being.

[D]

And he's not enhanced his own reputation this season, has hesitated.

[E]

So I mean he. I wouldn't rule them out sitting here at this stage, but I don't think the club want to do that for a third time and I'm not convinced Mason would want the job either. And I guess the problem spurs have, and I think I've talked to Seb about this before, is like they kind of need all the players from their most successful Premier League team, that is the Pochettino era, to sort of mature into coaches and that's just starting to happen. I think Ben Davis has done some coaching badges, I think Jan Vertongen's done some coaching badges, but none of them are quite old enough yet to have done something.

[A]

Eric Lamella is assistant coach at Sevilla.

[E]

Eric Lamella. Here we go. So they kind of, in a few years time there might be a sort of ready supply of interesting coaches around Europe who have strong spurs connections and are much loved by the fan base. But that hasn't quite happened yet. So you're kind of looking at the, you know, you're kind of looking at maybe Robbie Keane, obviously Mason, and then there's a couple of guys on Frank's coaching staff. Heitinger has managed at Ajax before and was obviously part of a very successful backroom team at Liverpool last season. And Justin Cochrane interviewed for the Brentford job when Frank left. And he's a very, very highly regarded coach, both by the FA and kind of in club circles as well. So those are the interim options. I think the obvious thing is to get someone into the end of the season and then look at your Pochettino's, your Tuchel's and see if your Alonso's, see if you can get someone like that. But spurs are in a relegation battle. They are. And so it's a big risk putting in an interim coach, particularly one with not a huge amount of experience.

[A]

I think in the broad sense and slightly more abstract sense, there's always a coaching option available somewhere. If you're a well run club, what you have is you have a contingency for when you either have to sack a coach or a coach gets poached by a club higher up the food chain. And then you have your list of alternatives who are evaluated based on play style, where they've improved the value of your players, et cetera, et cetera, tactical suitability. And then it's not obviously as simple as plugging someone in, but you shouldn't find yourself in a situation where your head coach has been under pressure and your fans have been demanding his sacking for three months and then you sack him and then you don't really know what to do next. I'm not saying that's what's happening at Spurs. Maybe there's a master plan about to be unveiled, maybe, but that's the process that should be in place for a club that is not Manchester City and doesn't just have the resources to go and take whatever they want from the marketplace and plug it in. That's how it should run. And so it's not necessarily about cycling through a list of names. It's kind of where's the guy that suits us? And it doesn't matter about his reputation. So, for instance, Eintracht Frankfurt had just taken Albert Riera from Slovenian football. Has a really good reputation, but he's from Slovenia, so of course he's from the Slovenian Premier League. So you would never, you would never allow him into the Premier League straight away. But my point being is that you have to be willing to search and find coaching options from sort of beyond.

[D]

The beaten track if you want Premier League experience. Dan, and you want to go down the angry, animated Italian route again ala Antonio Conte, Roberto De Zerbi's just become available. Is that something that Tottenham would be interested in, do you think? Lef Marseille by mutual consent in the early hours of Tuesday morning?

[E]

I don't know the answer to that, I think. But spurs are desperate enough to be interested in anyone with coaching pedigree and Premier League experience, I think. So again, as we sit here now, I wouldn't rule that out. It's kind of hard to know with deserve, isn't it? You've basically got 12 games now and every just. It's all about just staying in the Premier League. I know that sounds extreme, but that is the situation spurs have been left in. So with De Zerbi, I could kind of see that going one of two ways and there being no middle ground, you know, a spectacular charge up the table that would see him honoured with a five year deal or just accelerating the implosion by coming in and realizing what a shambles it is and doing a Conte. So I think it would be really watchable, right? It would be. Yeah, yeah. It wouldn't be boring. Yeah. I mean, him trying to get kind of vicario and, and, and. And drag us into sort of play out from the back. I could see him. Yeah. Ripping his hair out, but yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd certainly like to see it if I was a neutral, but I'm not sure as a Spurs fan if, if I. That's where my kind of money would be.

[D]

Enzo Maresca is available now. Andaliala might be available in the summer.

[A]

Seb.

[D]

But does this all point to just Pochettino coming back after the World Cup?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, organizationally, it seems that way. I don't think it's possible immediately because he has a job to do at the World cup and it would be extremely expensive to. And there's no suggestion that he would want to walk away from the US mnt. But then you have to wonder what's the basis for doing that, other than just the feel good factor? I'm a firm believer that Poshinol worked because he arrived at the club at a very specific moment in time, was able to inherit a. It ended up really just being Harry Kane. But it was a talented group of players. They were pliable. Whereas now, as time has gone on, I think there's a little bit of a different problem among the playing squad at the moment. I don't think it's as pliable. I think there's. We hear a lot of stories about the training ground and whether it's a little bit too nice and the stadium. It does often sound like an excuse, but it's like a. It's a different. You're attacking a different kind of negative culture. Pochettino taught spurs to be an underdog side and to rage against kind of their limitations. And now you're really after somebody who wants. Who you want to throw a few stones and make some of these players a little bit more humble at times. I don't know if that's unfair, but that's how I feel as a fan. I'm not reporting on this club, it's just that's my supporter take on it. I love what Mauricio Pochettino was able to do at Spurs. He's my favorite Tottenham coach of my lifetime without even really much competition. But then there's that little nagging voice in the back of my head which thinks. I kind of don't want to ruin that memory because at the moment it's one of the few that I've got left.

[D]

Right.

[A]

I don't want him to put himself in a position where he could tarnish what for so long was so good. So I don't know, it would unite the fan base. I think that's a very important thing. People are so negative and I think Tottenham could really use some positive energy around them, particularly in the stadium. Pochettino would do that. He is a pretty unforgiving character. I think that could do some good, but there's a lot of doubt in there. It's not just because it worked the first time. I don't think necessarily works again because the circumstances are so different.

[D]

He is, of course, also a former Chelsea manager. Which quite nicely fits the spurs mould of recent years. Is relegation a real possibility for Tottenham? That's what we're going to talk about in the final part of today's show.

[A]

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[D]

This is the Athletic FC podcast with Matt Davis Adams. Well could spurs decision be based on who's best place to stop them getting relegated? I was at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday. Leads came from two nil down to draw two two with Chelsea. The better news for spurs is that Benjamin Shesco got a stoppage time equalizer for Man United to stop West Ham winning again. As we record Dan the gap between spurs and trouble is 5 points. How realistic is the threat of relegation do you think? I mean can you even answer that without knowing who's going to be the person charged with stopping it from happening?

[E]

Yeah, I think you can. It's very realistic, I think. And I'm sorry to sort of call out one of our producers, but was it. Was it Mike saying, I don't think it's a. Or maybe it was Guy saying, I don't think spurs are in a relegation battle, but of course they are. Like, let's rule out the bottom two here because I think that most people can agree, you know, they're both down. So there's one spot left and every other team in that battle and it's Leeds Forest, West Ham with Spurs have more momentum and are playing better than Tottenham. And given the fact that Wolves have lost three on the bounce, but they picked up a little bit, I mean, you can make a case that spurs are the worst, you know, the easiest team to play in the Premier League at the moment. So yeah, they've got no momentum. They haven't won this year, as I said, at the top, you know, they've won two games since the start of December in the league against Brentford, who had a real off day and a really out of sorts Palace. So that they are. They're beatable by absolutely anyone. They've dropped points to all the teams below them. So there's no game you look at for spurs at the moment and think they're going to win that or they should win that. I mean, West Ham, yeah, the gap is five points, which is a relief and it's a big relief that Sesko got that equalizer last night. But I mean, West Ham are two stoppage time goals and two impressive comebacks away from being level. And points for spurs, you know, the only points they've dropped in the last five games were that, you know, that collapse against Chelsea and the United game, You know, they're playing, when you watch them, they're playing like a side that believes that safety is possible now. And they've got a real kind of sort of fire in their bellies, I think. And spurs do not have that, of course, like a new coach will come in and I think give everyone a lift. But as you pointed out, it's Arsenal next. That's the hardest game in the Premier League at the moment. So that's a really tough start for whoever's in the dugout. Forest have Wolves tonight, so if Forest win that against the Wolves side, who are on paper the worst side in the Premier League at the moment, then they'll be level on points with Spurs. So, yeah, I mean, I think they're, well in it. I think they're really in it. And no one should be complacent about the prospect of spurs going down this year.

[A]

You wouldn't back them to beat anyone in the Premier League currently high moral way. You wouldn't, like, you wouldn't feel secure going into any game, because I think there's no. This is a team with no. Very hard thing to say. It's a team with no strengths at the moment. Set pieces maybe pretty good at attacking set pieces, not very good at defending set pieces, but pretty good at attacking set pieces. Can't defend very well. Goalkeeper's form is bad. Can't score goals, can't create chances, can't pass the ball forward. Can't stop a team passing through them. So all of those weaknesses, and I'm not saying they're incurable, but at the moment, you can't carry those kind of weaknesses in the Premier League, even against teams like Wolves who came very, very close to beating spurs at, what, Hat Lane early in the season. So why would you. What's the basis for believing that spurs are not in a relegation battle at the moment? The teams I watch around them, West Ham included, look immeasurably better. I mean, West Ham's performance against Man United last night was extremely good. Spurs wouldn't put up a performance like that against Manchester United at home. So it's kind of. It's the assumption that relegation doesn't really apply to Spurs. That kind of has put them in this situation. I think that's as much about the players as anybody else.

[D]

It's funny, everything that you've just said there about Spurs. I would apply to my own team, Forest. I think we're just as bad, if not worse, than Spurs. So we're all looking at West Ham to drop off, basically.

[A]

I'm going to challenge you on that map because you know the composition of the Forest squad a couple of years ago, you remember this, You're a Forest fan. You remember how Ruby laughed at you about, oh, just buy this player, buy that player. Buy, do this, do that. No method to it. Well, Forest's squad is more balanced than Tottenham's, isn't it? Now, I mean, you have players that can create chances. You seem to suffer fewer injuries, you score goals, you've got, you know, I would say a pretty good defensive unit when those players are fit. So, I don't know. I think you're doing Forest a massive disservice there.

[D]

I did watch them on Friday night concede some absolutely horrific goals against these. But anyway, this is not about Forest. This is about Tottenham.

[A]

Make it about Forest.

[D]

I'd really rather not. Seb, I've got to be honest with you. Problems at spurs don't just go as far as the manager or even indeed the players. Even if they don't go down. Being so low in the league again is not a good look. We've mentioned the view from the lane already. It's the spurs podcast from the Athletic. And on the latest episode, James Moore ranked the top 10 people responsible for spurs downfall this season. Have a listen if you want to hear the full top 10. But his top three were as follows. Number three was the CEO Vinay Venkatesham. Number two were the owners, the Lewis family. And number one, still top of the pops, the former Chairman of almost 25 years, Daniel Levy. Do you make James Wright, Dan, with that top three that he's gone for there?

[E]

Yeah. I mean, please listen to the pod if you're interested, because we had a bit of discussion after James presented his list and I would have had Frank higher. I think you've got to put the current coach, I think he was fifth or sixth and I think you had to have the current coach higher than that. But I certainly don't dispute that Levy and the Lewis's should be 1 and 2. I'm not sure about Vinay, I'm not sure to what extent he's a kind of puppet of the current ownership, to be honest. But yeah, I said at the top of the show, I do think Levy's still the most responsible person. I think he's laid the foundations. He's kind of set the conditions. He started his decisions and his running the club set this to quote avb, kind of spiral of negativity in action. And what we're seeing now is really the consequence of years of mismanagement from the top. I remember being in a Conte press conference in about 20, 21 before an Everton game. And Everton were at the time where Everton were for that, you know, perennially kind of 17th. And Conte said they're a very good warning to Tottenham. They're a good lesson that if you're in the middle of the Premier League and you're not careful, you can slip down the table. And he had Kane and son at the time, so he had two superstars. But I think he probably saw the writing on the wall and realized that it just wasn't sustainable the way spurs were being run. They were not good enough players. They were not spending the money or spending the money on wages to compete with their rivals. And there was a kind of culture of complacency or whatever within the club and that's now nearly five years ago. So I think this has been a long time coming and I think despite the fact that he hasn't been at the club since September, I think this failure this season still has Levy's fingerprints all over it.

[D]

That's a nice summation, Dam. Last word to you then, Seb Thomas Frank obviously failed, didn't do a very good job, couldn't turn the supertank around. But fair to say, in summary, that it's difficult to turn a supertank around if it's got loads of holes in it and it's taking on water and the hull is run.

[A]

Wait, what do you want me to say in response to that? Yeah, but when do we all sign off on this idea that it is that difficult to. To change the culture at a football club or to make good decisions which have a positive impact, maybe not a lasting impact, but football clubs are like everything Dan said, I agree with completely. Where Tottenham are at the moment is the result of a lot of bad footballing decisions being made in a row and kind of myopic perspectives and the things that Antonio Conte said. At the same time, it doesn't take very much not to get back to where you were, but adjust your trajectory. Look at Manchester United, you make a good decision at the right time and then all of a sudden your environment changes, the weather in your microclimate changes and people are looking forward to games again. And that becomes a sort of self fulfill or kind of self sustaining energy. So the idea that this kind of, wow, it's a super tank. I can't turn it. You just got to suffer through the middle. I just don't accept that at all. I think it's a cop out. I think you just have to take responsibility at the right moments, make good decisions, allow the right people to make those decisions and then all of a sudden everybody feels a little bit happier and starts talking about things other than relegation. So yeah, Tanker has a few holes, but this idea that the kind of like spurs are heading towards inevitable doom that nobody can do anything about and it's just beyond the powers of anybody who works in football. It's nonsense. Absolute nonsense. All right.

[D]

It's going to be fascinating for us neutrals to watch how it unfolds for the remainder of the season and extremely painful for those with Tottenham proclivities. That's where we'll leave things for today. My thanks to Dan and to Seb for their contributions and to Jay for popping by earlier as well, but mostly to you for listening back with another episode tomorrow. For now though, from all of this, it's goodbye.

[A]

You've been listening to the Athletic FC Podcast. The producers were Guy Clark, Mike Stavro and Jay Beal, with editing by Paul Iliff and Nick Thompson. The executive producer is A.D. moorhead. To listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, including our dedicated club shows. Search for the Athletic Wherever you get your podcasts. You'll also find us on YouTube at.

[D]

The Athletic FC Podcast, so make sure you subscribe. The Athletic FC Podcast is an athletic media company production.

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