Thomas Frank must not become the new lightning rod for Spurs fans

Guglielmo Vicario is not the first Tottenham Hotspur player to be targeted by his own supporters, who booed the Italian goalkeeper in Saturday’s loss to Fulham, and recent history would suggest he probably won’t be the last. Former defender Emerson Royal had similar treatment a few years ago, as did Davinson Sánchez. Last season, winger Brennan Johnson was also subjected to abuse on social media.

As a club, Spurs hoped to move past such ugliness when they began their new era this season. The departure of executive chairman Daniel Levy, for so long the primary target of the supporters’ frustration, and the appointment of Thomas Frank as head coach meant that Spurs could dream of a new dawn, and a shifting of the vibe.

Rather than leading Spurs out of the clouds, though, Frank already finds himself in a raging storm. His team conceded 11 goals in three consecutive defeats last week, and are now 12th in the Premier League table. With Levy gone, the danger for Frank is that he could quickly become the new lightning rod at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

It all feels increasingly precarious, with Frank now walking the trickiest of tightropes. On the one hand, he must retain the support and faith of his players. That means standing up for Vicario, as he did on Saturday and again on Monday, when he said the home supporters “cannot” mock one of their own players again.

“He [Vicario] makes a mistake and there is a little bit of booing after that, as I remember it,” Frank said. “The next ball he clears and there is like a cheering. You can’t do that. The opponent can do that. You can’t do that as a fan.”

But on the other hand, Frank must also avoid going to war with the Spurs supporters. Only a manager in the safest of positions can challenge a home crowd, and Frank has certainly not yet earned that right. Spurs, after all, have won only two of their last 10 games in all competitions. “We are nothing without the fans,” he said, repeatedly and pointedly, on Monday.

This all represents an unfamiliar and unwelcome challenge for Frank. For the previous seven years he had worked at a sensible, rational and logical club in Brentford. Now he must navigate the emotionally choppy waters of Spurs, where rationality and cool heads are much harder to find. Expectations are considerably higher at a big-six club, and everything is more extreme.

Asked by Telegraph Sport on Monday whether he felt like he had quite enough on his plate without having to deal with his own fans booing his goalkeeper, Frank said: “Short answer, yes.” He also agreed with the suggestion that there are more things to drain him now than during his time at Brentford.

It is a measure of the volatility of the situation that it is probably a relief for Spurs to be playing away on Tuesday night, rather than at home again. They might even be glad to be playing at Newcastle United, where the away supporters are situated high up in the stands, far from the action. If the Spurs fans do boo Vicario again, or indeed turn on Frank, then they might not even be heard.

To be clear, this current storm at Spurs cannot be entirely Frank’s fault. They won the Europa League last season but, as Frank continues to point out, this is a team that finished 17th in the Premier League. Their terrible home form is not a new development, either: since the turn of the year they have won only three of 16 league games at home.

Why is everything so tetchy at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium? Fan groups point to high ticket prices, with the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust saying that young supporters are priced out. “Over the past couple of seasons, it’s undeniable that the atmosphere has declined at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium,” the trust said last month.

Lacking star power in squad

The transition away from Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, two modern idols, has not helped. Spurs are now lacking star power, especially in the continued absence of key attackers Dejan Kulusevski, Dominic Solanke and James Maddison. When neighbours Arsenal reconstructed their squad under Mikel Arteta, they built it around academy graduates Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe, thus securing the backing and buy-in of the home crowd. Spurs currently have no Saka equivalent.

The strained relationship between the squad and the fans is evidently a major problem for the players. As revealed by Telegraph Sport on Sunday, the issue has been a key theme in team meetings. Clearly, there is a divide there – and Frank must straddle it while trying to reverse this troubling run of form.

The good news for him is that he has built his career on thinking calmly and analytically, of seeking evidence-based solutions and applying the right processes. In the emotional world of Spurs, remaining level-headed might just be his best way of navigating the chaos. That is easier said than done, though, and Frank will know he is in the midst of perhaps his greatest test yet.

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