Tottenham don't need a saviour. They need a system

A new manager won't be enough to solve the North London club's major issues.

There was certainly a sense of inevitability about Thomas Frank’s sacking on Wednesday morning, as Tottenham Hotspur finally drew a line under a disastrous managerial spell. Not only had the Dane failed to improve on last season’s horrid league campaign, but he also held the unenviable record of being the worst Spurs boss in 20 years based on his points-per-game average across all competitions. No ifs, no buts. He clearly had to go.

However, with Frank now out the door the attention of disgruntled Tottenham fans will now quickly look to find a new avenue to exorcise their concerns about the club’s proximity to the bottom of the Premier League table and the future of a team that has now demonstrably failed on the pitch for two consecutive seasons. Even if Spurs fans did justifiably want Frank sacked, few would suggest that the club’s problems began and ended with the Dane.

As such, the hunt for a new manager not only takes centre stage but also requires additional context. Whether or not it was simply a coincidence, Roberto De Zerbi’s departure from Marseille just a few hours before Frank left Tottenham essentially lit social media ablaze with speculation. Add to that speculative links to Xavi or Xabi Alonso with the age-old hopes and dreams of Mauricio Pochettino returning to the club and the discourse surrounding Tottenham’s current predicament quickly descended into a debate over which saviour was going to show up and single-handedly turn the club around.

This, of course, is nonsense. While Tottenham absolutely have to find a manager that can do a far better job than Frank, the far greater concern for Spurs fans at this moment in time should be an acknowledgement of why Frank didn’t work in the first place and how the club can avoid making that mistake again. Just as the Dane hasn’t been the only factor in Tottenham’s demise this season, we also simply can’t conclude that his successor will be the perfect solution to all the club’s problems.

In this regard, we’re obviously referring to Frank working within Brentford’s overarching system but then failing in Tottenham’s. Hiring the manager in the hope that he could do what he did at Brentford without the infrastructure that allowed him to succeed at the Bees was not so much putting the cart before the horse but rather buying the cart and wondering why it couldn’t pull itself without said horse.

Tottenham aren’t the first club to make this mistake. Whether it was Graham Potter’s disastrous spell at Chelsea after leaving Brighton, Ruben Amorim failing to adapt to life at Manchester United after Sporting and even De Zerbi leaving Brighton only to find the chaotic nature of Marseille too much to handle, we’ve seen countless examples of bigger clubs thinking managers can conveniently pack up their success and apply it elsewhere. With regards to Spurs, they should have perhaps already known this before appointing Frank; considering the manner in which Nuno Espírito Santo’s move from Wolverhampton to North London fell apart so quickly.

However, highlighting these failed managerial stints isn’t an exercise in retrospectively pointing out the mistakes in identifying and hiring coaches, but rather growing proof that to succeed in the modern Premier League you have to do so much more than spend money on players and hope a half-decent manager can pull them all together to make a successful squad. In many ways, the best-run clubs in England build the right squad long before they even think about bringing in the right coach. And that’s something Tottenham certainly haven’t been doing in the last few years.

Perhaps this is where Tottenham fans and I part ways in regards to the problems at the club, but despite Frank’s shortcomings as manager of the club I always found myself sympathising with him simply because his squad never looked up to the task of matching the club’s expectations of finishing in the top six and pushing for the top four. Much of that was simply down to the club missing so many stars through injury, but I also take issue with any claims that suggest that this team is perfectly good enough to challenge for the top four.

The North London side have certainly spent money like a top four club. In the last five seasons Tottenham’s net spend in the transfer window (€665.8 million) is the fourth highest in the Premier League, ahead of Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester City. And the total cost of this current Spurs squad in transfer fees stands at €865.4m - just €60m less than Arsenal have spent on their team and ahead of Newcastle and Aston Villa. Of course, this doesn’t take into account wages - which Tottenham are notably stringent with in regards to their domestic rivals - but it still points to a lot of money spent and not much of a return in terms of sporting success.

This is perhaps where the real problems lie with Tottenham. The club had until very recently run a co-sporting director operation, where Johan Lange focused on scouting, the youth academy and player analytics, while Fabio Paratici (who departed this month to join Fiorentina) was effectively in charge of recruitment and transfer strategy for the first team. And, as a result, we’ve seen the club implementing two contrasting and often contradictory recruitment policies simultaneously in the transfer window.

For example, this season alone has seen Spurs pick up a number of exciting, young talents like Luka Vuskovic, Kota Takai and Souza. And last season saw the club swoop in for excellent prospects Antonín Kinský and Lucas Bergvall. Each of these players has bags of potential and points to a club that clearly knows how to not only identify excellent young players but also has the resources and information to take advantage of markets outside of the traditional stomping grounds of Premier League clubs, like Japan, Croatia and the Czech Republic.

However, there’s another side to Tottenham’s transfer policy that screams of desperation and short-term planning. While there’s nothing particularly wrong with players like Xavi Simons, Mohammed Kudus, Mathys Tel, Randal Kolo Muani and João Palhinha, they were basically all either transfer listed or conveniently pushing for moves away from their previous clubs. The same can be said of players like Dominic Solanke (signed because of a release clause), James Maddison (had to leave after Leicester City’s relegation), Dejan Kulusevski (desperate to leave Juventus) and Richarlison (Everton under financial pressure and had to sell), which all points to Tottenham more or less wheeling and dealing from one transfer window to the next.

Some of those players have done a good job since joining Tottenham. I’m a card-carrying member of the Simons fan club and players like Richarlison, Kudus and Solanke have actually improved their goals and assists per 90 since moving from Everton, West Ham and Bournemouth respectively. But whether any of the aforementioned stars in the previous paragraph are good enough to start for other “Big Six” teams is certainly up for debate. And that’s before we even consider the troubling injury records that many of them have.

Regardless, the manner in which each of these stars has made the move to North London has never come across as part of a long-term strategy to build a coherent squad. Unlike Arsenal or Manchester City, who put so much time and effort into fortifying the strength in depth of their squads, or Liverpool, who (well, until this season…) tend to focus their somewhat limited transfer budget on specific stars for specific needs in the squad, Tottenham’s squad seems to be made up of either exceptionally gifted young players or just perfectly solid Premier League stars that happened to be for sale at the time.

Ultimately, Tottenham’s next managerial appointment will of course matter a great deal. But unless it is accompanied by structural clarity, a coherent recruitment model and genuine alignment between the boardroom and the dugout, it risks becoming yet another name added to an increasingly familiar cycle. Spurs do not need a saviour; they need a system. Until that foundation is properly rebuilt, no manager - whether it be Alonso, De Zerbi or Pochettino - will be able to turn promise into progress or spending into sustained success.