Frank outclasses Enrique and PSG but Levy is already letting him down at Tottenham
Thomas Frank got the better of the best team and manager in the world for 80 minutes but he’s already hamstrung by Daniel Levy at Tottenham. Please give him a chance.
One thing was very clear when the lineups were announced for this season curtain-raiser: Luis Enrique has zero respect for Thomas Frank’s Tottenham.
Desire Doue played ‘in midfield’ in order to also get Bradley Barcola, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembele into the side ahead of him, with one member of the outstanding midfield trio which dominated the Champions League last season on the bench, another suspended having been sent off in the Club World Cup final and just Vitinha left to deal with whatever Spurs (they call themselves Spurs, don’t they, this team in white?) could throw at them.
Enrique will now have respect for Thomas Frank’s Tottenham, who like Chelsea a month ago to the day, and Aston Villa in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final, didn’t just show the fallibility of this outstandingly talented PSG side, but thoroughly embarrassed them for the majority of this game.
To suggest ‘they don’t like it up’em’ would be the gravest of understatements. They’re the football team equivalent of a toddler packing their new train set away when it’s not being played with ‘in the right way’. Spurs didn’t try to beat PSG at their own game, and rather than adapting to the new rules, PSG stopped playing.
We’re reticent to advise Enrique on football tactics, for obvious reasons. But how on earth he hasn’t spent what we accept will have been limited time on the training pitch at the end of last season entirely on how to mark footballers from set pieces is beyond us. They are truly terrible at it.
Frank definitely deserves some credit for putting a plan into action, which for both goals featured a fairly simple Cristian Romero peel to the back post with a bit of blocking from teammates before a looping header for Micky van de Ven’s opener and then a downwards header sort of near the corner for the new captain to get his own name on the scoresheet. But he doesn’t deserve any credit for recognising that as a PSG weakness. It’s glaring and has been glaring for a while.
Lucas Chevalier did Enrique no favours either. The “new profile” goalkeeper he urged the club to sign was at fault for the second goal – palming into his own net – and, predictably, looked comparatively uneasy under crosses and amid general aerial pressure while the ousted world class giant sitting at home no doubt revelled in it all as his agent fields dozens of calls for his services from teams who weirdly like goalkeepers who can win Champions League titles for you.
Tottenham’s goals came from set pieces, but the unease felt by PSG in this game was at least as much to do with the pressure Spurs put on them in open play. Pape Matar Sarr was the standout in that regard, but they were all at it when – and this is crucial – they were well set to do so.
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Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs were one thing or the other: all-out attack, as was the case in 99 per cent of their games under him; or backs-to-the-wall defending, as was the case in the Europa League final. On the basis of this game, Frank’s Tottenham will at the very least be balanced.
They didn’t have the ball much, but looked largely comfortable in defence, even seeming to enjoy it rather than seeing it as a necessary (or indeed unnecessary) nuisance as they did under Ange. But they also carried a threat throughout, with Mohammed Kudus offering enough to suggest he could be a very useful signing, with some nice link-up in tandem with Richarlison, while the rest of the team looked to push up and box PSG in, again, when it was the right time to do so.
It will be criminal for Daniel Levy to look at this game, how they more than matched the champions of Europe before two of PSG’s subs came on to score while three of Tottenham’s four conceded were on the pitch to give up the lead while the other missed the crucial penalty from the spot in the shootout, and not provide Frank with more quality options in what remains of the transfer window.
This game will have endeared Frank to the Spurs fans. He’s an excellent manager who was seconds away from masterminding victory over the best team in Europe. If anything, they, as we do, will feel sorry for him as he walks into a season with a very limited squad.
He’s going to need far more quality in attack and in midfield if they’re to beat your Burnleys and West Hams, and if Levy gives Frank that, as we now know what his Spurs can do against the very best, he could be the man to bring genuine, long-term success to Tottenham.
We won’t hold our breath.
