Although Thomas Frank and his Arsenal cup are no longer at the Tottenham Hotspur grounds, his memory will be indelibly etched in the minds of the Tottenham supporters, and it won't be for good reasons at all.
Spurs nearly got relegated thanks to Frank, and had he managed to stay even longer as Spurs manager despite needing to be fired in the early part of the winter, the Lilywhites would have certainly been sent down.
But Roberto De Zerbi saved the day and got so many Tottenham players who were toiling under Frank to believe. Micky van de Ven and Pedro Porro, in particular, went from villains to absolute heroes, with Porro parlaying his great displays in the relegation fight into a World Cup trophy and being the literal best right back of the tournament this summer with the whole world watching.
De Zerbi is the anti-Frank
A key difference between De Zerbi and Frank is the mentality, and the Italian manager offered another glimpse of that again with a bold statement. De Zerbi is already prepared to compete for real silverware at N17.
He told reporters during the preseason training sessions, via Hotspur Lane, “Tottenham deserves to compete for the top of the Premier League.”
Yes they do. A club of Tottenham Hotspur's size, stature, history, and financial power with the stadium they have and the sheer number of fans, as well as being a top Premier League club in the city of London, are all reasons to believe they can compete with anyone in European football.
Contrast De Zerbi saying that he wants to compete at the top of the table to Thomas Frank literally telling Tottenham fans at one of his first press conferences that Spurs can expect to lose games - and as many as half of them - and you can see why there is such a huge difference in how things feel around Tottenham right now.
Frank would have never brought in players the caliber of Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes to the Tottenham midfield. He would have never been standing there and telling the fans to expect winning the biggest titles in football.
But Tottenham have that now with De Zerbi, and it is wonderful to go back to a manager like Ange Postecoglou who is bold in his thinking. Except unlike Big Ange, De Zerbi has the tactical acumen and the transfer clout to make that happen.
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