Thomas Frank was dismissed on Wednesday after just eight months at the helm of Tottenham Hotspur.<\/p>\n
According to fresh reports emerging in the aftermath of his departure, Frank privately felt that only one Spurs player \u2014 Pedro Porro \u2014 was capable of playing for a \u201ctruly elite European side.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision to sack the 52-year-old came after a 2-1 home defeat to Newcastle, extending Tottenham\u2019s winless Premier League streak to eight matches. Frank, who arrived last July following an impressive spell at Brentford, had managed just two victories in his last 17 league games when the club opted to make a change.<\/p>\n
In an official statement, Spurs insisted they were \u201cdetermined\u201d to give Frank time and backing to shape the team long-term, but declining results and performances ultimately forced what they described as a \u201cnecessary\u201d decision.<\/p>\n
Since his exit, more details about his tenure have surfaced. One report claimed sections of the squad grew frustrated with his repeated focus on Arsenal, the league leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe kept bringing up Arsenal to the players and they quickly grew tired of it,\u201d a source told The Telegraph. \u201cEven around the Emirates fixture, before and after, he went on about how strong Arsenal were. Some players were basically thinking, \u2018enough about Arsenal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, The Times reports that Frank did not hold an especially high opinion of his squad\u2019s overall level. It\u2019s claimed he believed only right-back Pedro Porro had the quality to feature for a genuinely elite European club. The report also referenced Spurs\u2019 failure to secure key transfer targets such as Morgan Gibbs-White and Eberechi Eze as a source of frustration.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, before taking over at Spurs, Frank had openly praised Porro while still Brentford manager. After a 2-0 loss to Tottenham in February last year, he compared the Spaniard to former Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they haven\u2019t had their best season, but look at their team,\u201d Frank said at the time. \u201cJust their front three \u2014 plenty of clubs would take them without hesitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe midfield of Kulusevski, Bentancur and Bissouma is very, very, very strong at Premier League level.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd even though they\u2019ve had issues at centre-back, Gray and Ben Davies were excellent against us.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cPorro is outstanding at right-back. He has Trent-like qualities going forward. And Spence has also done very well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thomas Frank was dismissed on Wednesday after just eight months at the helm of Tottenham Hotspur. According to fresh reports emerging in the aftermath of his departure, Frank privately felt that only one Spurs player \u2014 Pedro Porro \u2014 was capable of playing for a \u201ctruly elite European side.\u201d The decision to sack the 52-year-old …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":58671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/resize-5.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58672,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58670\/revisions\/58672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}