Thomas Frank's Tottenham tenure is now over. Tuesday night's 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Newcastle United proved to be the final straw for the Spurs hierarchy and with good reason.
The Lilywhites are still yet to win any of their eight Premier League matches in 2026, claiming only two victories from 17 outings since the end of October, beating Brentford and Crystal Palace during this period. Thus, Tottenham sit 16th, a mere five points clear of the bottom three, raising bona fide concerns that they could be relegated for the first time since 1977.
A new manager will be in charge of Spurs' next fixture, a North London derby against Arsenal on 22 February, who will that be remains to be seen. It will not be Frank, with some alarming statistics having come to light following his dismissal.
Thomas Frank's dismall Spurs tenure in statistics
Had it not been for their Champions League exploits, finishing fourth in the gigantic league table, Dane would surely have been dismissed by Spurs a lot sooner. That's because, in the Premier League, Frank's record was historically abysmal.
Tottenham manager's Premier League points-per-game
Managers | PL matches with Spurs | PL points-per-game |
|---|---|---|
Thomas Frank | 26 | 1.12 |
Juande Ramos | 36 | 1.14 |
Ossie Ardiles | 54 | 1.15 |
Jacques Santini | 11 | 1.18 |
Christian Gross | 27 | 1.26 |
Terry Neil | 82 | 1.27 |
Glenn Hoddle | 87 | 1.28 |
George Graham | 101 | 1.30 |
Ange Postecoglou | 76 | 1.37 |
Gerry Francis | 119 | 1.39 |
Doug Livermore | 42 | 1.40 |
Keith Burkinshaw | 294 | 1.40 |
Terry Venables | 137 | 1.42 |
Nuno EspÃrito Santo | 10 | 1.50 |
Martin Jol | 113 | 1.51 |
David Pleat | 98 | 1.52 |
Peter Shreeves | 126 | 1.54 |
Arthur Rowe | 206 | 1.52 |
Jimmy Anderson | 141 | 1.58 |
Bill Nicholson | 663 | 1.63 |
José Mourinho | 58 | 1.64 |
Harry Redknapp | 144 | 1.74 |
André Villas-Boas | 54 | 1.83 |
Antonio Conte | 56 | 1.88 |
Mauricio Pochettino | 202 | 1.89 |
Tim Sherwood | 22 | 1.91 |
Of all 26 Tottenham managers to oversee ten league matches or more since WWII, Frank departs with the lowest points-per-game ratio at 1.12. Juande Ramos, Ossie Ardiles and Jacques Santini are the only other men to collect fewer than 1.2 points-per-game while, at the other end of the list, Tim Sherwood's tally of 1.91 remains the highest, just above Antonio Conte and Mauricio Pochettino.
This though is not all Thomas Frank's fault. Under Ange Postecoglou last season, yes Spurs won the Europa League, but they finished 17th in the Premier League, beaten 22 times, a club-record for a single season. This losing culture appears to have continued throughout this campaign.
Clubs with most Premier League defeats since the start of 2024/25
Clubs | PL defeats in 24/25 & 25/26 |
|---|---|
Wolverhampton Wanderers | 39 |
Tottenham Hotspur | 33 |
West Ham United | 31 |
Fulham | 25 |
Brentford | 24 |
Nottingham Forest | 24 |
Amazingly, since the start of last season, only Wolverhampton Wanderers have suffered more Premier League defeats than Spurs' 33. That is the same Wolves who are destined for relegation, currently rock-bottom of the table with only eight points to their name, which is fewer than that Derby team had at this stage of 2007/08.
So, could Tottenham be traveling to Molineux next season in the EFL Championship? Well, this genuinely is not out of the question. When a team is underperforming as Spurs are, usually a new manager comes in, lifts the mood and results improve.
In this case however, with Cristian Romero, Kevin Danso, Ben Davies, Destiny Udogie, Pedro Porro, Rodrigo Bentancur, Lucas Bergvall, James Maddison, Dejan Kuluševski, Mohammed Kudus, Richarlison and now Wilson Odobert all sidelined, it won't be so straight forward of guaranteed.
Whoever is in charge a week on Sunday will be thrown into the deep end with a North London derby. The last Spurs manager to take charge for the first time in a game against Arsenal was Glenn Hoddle in April 2001, overseeing an FA Cup semi-final defeat at Old Trafford in, what proved to be, Sol Campbell's final appearance for the club. Whoever takes over surely cannot do worse than Frank, so at least there is that.