Thomas Frank ‘on very thin ice’ at Tottenham after ‘golden rule’ is broken
Thomas Frank has been warned against being “bolshy” when his position is under pressure at Tottenham, by Alan Pardew.
Tottenham lost 2-1 at home to Fulham on Saturday night, with Guglielmo Vicario’s glaring error to allow Harry Wilson to score the second after just six minutes causing boos towards the keeper from the home fans.
Following the final whistle Frank called out the response from the stands, branding those involved as “not true” Spurs supporters.
But while ex-Newcastle and West Ham boss Pardew can see where the Dane is coming from he doesn’t think the Tottenham manager currently has a leg to stand on.
Alan Pardew warns Frank to be careful at Tottenham
Spurs haven’t won at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the Premier League since conquering lowly Wolves on the opening day of the season.
And Pardew says that, with Frank’s job increasingly under pressure at Tottenham, he can’t be throwing his weight around when he isn’t getting his side to deliver in front of the home fans.
Speaking live on talkSPORT the former Crystal Palace and Charlton manager said: “[Booing] is part and parcel of the thing. I can understand him trying to protect his players a little bit and being bolshy. Is that a word I can use? Yeah, being a bit bolshy. He’s the manager saying, ‘I don’t like it, I don’t want it’.
“He ain’t in a position to do that at the moment, and he’s on very thin ice I think… and I go by the people I know that love Spurs.
“It’s that home form. That’s the golden rule. You’ve got to win your home games. You’ve got to send the punters home happy.”
Toxic atmosphere may be too much for Frank to recover from
The age-old debate about whether fans can boo their own team or not always boils down to the fact that yes of course they can as long as they aren’t veering into abuse.
They are paying customers and boos are the way that performers are shown the dissatisfaction from their audience.
But whether they should do so or not is another question, since most supporters who regularly attend games would consider themselves part of the match in that their presence and support is supposed to provide an advantage to the home side, and booing the players necessarily makes it harder for all involved at Spurs to succeed.
So both sides are right to a degree, but that probably won’t matter if Frank keeps up the way he is going currently, because few managers last if the fanbase turns against them.
At this stage it is going to take the former Brentford boss and his players turning things around on the pitch first to get the fans back onside, and they will simply have to do that in spite of whatever is happening in the stands for now.
The issue is that the product on the pitch seems to be getting worse rather than better after three defeats in a week, and if the reaction from the stands continues to follow it might be irrelevant who is right or wrong when a new face and a new start might become the only way to change that.
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