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There may not be a more inept manager in the Premier League right now than Thomas Frank, and just when it seems like he cannot sink any lower as the on the pitch leader of Tottenham Hotspur, he somehow manages to fall below those low expectations.

Star center back Cristian Romero has been openly disgruntled with Spurs over the last several months, but his thoughts only reflect how everyone in the fan base and every player at the club feels about the team's horrendous leadership and lack of standards.

There is no ambition at the club, so players like Romero who are serial winners outside of Tottenham - he literally won the World Cup with Argentina - are naturally going to be upset. And that is especially the case when Romero decided to re-sign with Tottenham and take on the club captaincy after Son Heung-min when he could have easily joined up with, say, Real Madrid this past summer.

The Cristian Romero rumors are troubling

Now, there are very serious transfer rumors circling around about Romero potentially leaving the club again, and Gaston Edul has even reported that Cristian Romero WILL be leaving Tottenham Hotspur this coming summer transfer window after publicly denouncing the club's latest debacle of a winter transfer window.

Instead of dissuading those rumors or assuaging the fan base that Romero will not be going anywhere, Thomas Frank, at a press conference prior to a huge game for Tottenham against Manchester United, literally said out loud that he has "no clue" what will happen to Romero after making cryptic remarks about him being dealt "internal" discipline.

Frank said of Romero when asked if the Argentinian superstar will be back for th 2026/27 season, via The Spurs Express, “That’s a question I have no idea about. Right now he is the captain, he has a long-term contract and we signed a new contract with him.”

What an absurd thing to say and yet another foot in mouth moment from Frank, who is both the worst manager on the pitch and off the pitch in the Premier League right now. He is literally talking about his captain and best player as if he were a one off loanee whom he had no clue what the future would hold for.

This might be an appropriate response if asked about Randal Kolo Muani, and yet he is so flippant about Romero's status. It is understandable to play coy or be vague about a hot button issue, but instead of saying "no clue", Frank could have easily said, "I know I want him back" or "He is very important to us and we need to keep him". Instead, he just said, "I have no idea," and, in other words, "I don't care, moving on". Hopefully, instead of Romero, Frank will be the one moving on.

The vast majority of Tottenham Hotspur supporters are simply sitting idly by and waiting with general disinterest at the club's happenings until they finally hear the words that Thomas Frank has been officially deposed as manager of the club.

Not that Frank being fired would magically solve all of Spurs problems, because the rot at the club obviously permeates deep from within. So deep, in fact, that any optimism of a turn around at Tottenham after the summer firing of Daniel Levy has been immediately erased with the knowledge that everyone above at ENIC is responsible for Spurs being nothing more than a farm for commercial financial interests rather than anything resembling a sporting project.

Nothing could be clearer after how poor of a winter transfer window Tottenham had this year. They had so many needs across their roster, specifically in the attack, and yet they addressed none of them. Conor Gallagher was the only established signing Spurs made, and yet they are still thin at center midfield and failed to sign the actual profile they needed at the position.

Thomas Frank is obviously part of the problem

Far from being a blameless scapegoat or the victim himself, Thomas Frank is an active participant in the attempted brainwashing by the club of its fans. In the aftermath of the miserably failed January transfer window, the Tottenham Hotspur manager went out of his way to defend Spurs transfer window at the press conference prior to the clash against Manchester United in the Premier League.

Frank said, via The Spurs Express, when asked if the window was a sign of Tottenham simply doubling down on mediocrity, “That's your opinion. This club is very ambitious. I think if it was this easy to get another player in, then I'd play Football Manager.”

Now that is the exact response Tottenham fans feared was coming, but it is nonetheless thoroughly unsurprising. All season long after every loss, Frank has tried to basically lie bald faced to the fan base that his team has been playing well, so it then makes sense that this same character would try to explain away the awful January transfer window as a positive.

"Very ambitious"? Fabio Paratici, who just left Tottenham for Fiorentina, said his primary motivation for doing so was because the Viola are a serious club, thus implying that Tottenham are not. And so many great managers - far greater than Frank - have said the same thing, such as Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho. None of them have any love lost for this club's horrendous leadership, and yet here is Frank openly kissing their behinds.

Although Tottenham Hotspur were able to nick a point off Manchester City with a 2-2 draw last Premier League weekend fueled by a brace by striker Dominic Solanke, it has still been more than a month since Spurs last beat an English side. They have not won a Premier League matchup since Dec. 28 against Crystal Palace, a narrow 1-0 victory.

Spurs have been an embarrassment this season and are staring down relegation. Meanwhile, their opponents on Saturday, Manchester United, have been resurgent after finally giving up on their vastly underperforming manager Ruben Amorim, replacing him with former star center midfielder Michael Carrick.

Manchester United's success under Carrick has given Spurs fans more fuel to want Frank out, as he has been treading water with wins over Bundesliga clubs in the Champions League and put his own safety in better standing with a draw against a Premier League title contender in Man City.

Thomas Frank is on the hot seat

But he will be back under the kibosh again if Tottenham Hotspur cannot get a result against Man United. The good news for Frank is that he will have two of his most important players available on Saturday afternoon at Old Trafford.

The Danish manager confirmed at the press conference in the build up to Tottenham vs. Manchester United that both superstar center backs Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven will be back and available this weekend after injury scares. However, versatile wide man Djed Spence is merely "touch and go" again and could miss the game.

He said, via Football.London's Alasdair Gold, "Micky trained today and is available for selection for Saturday. Djed is getting closer and is touch and go, there is a chance he could be available. Romero is available."

Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven are obviously Tottenham's two most important players right now, especially with right winger Mohammed Kudus still out injured. While star striker Dominic Solanke may soon challenge that, Romero and Van de Ven have been the team's top goal scorers and defensive threats while also carrying the ball and passing at a higher level than, honestly, most of the midfielders.

So the fact that Tottenham will have both Romero and Van de Ven out there against Benjamin Sesko, Bryan Mbeumo, Bruno Fernandes, and the resurgent Man United attack will at least give Spurs a chance on the road against arguably the Premier League's hottest team under Michael Carrick's management.

Spence's absence could be felt, though. He is not a starter, but his ability to carry the ball in more attacking positions or even spell Pedro Porro at right back could be missed depending on the game flow this Saturday.

Former Tottenham Hotspur director of football Fabio Paratici may have had some bizarre ideas on the way out, such as trying to work with Ivan Juric as the next Spurs manager, but he also nearly saved the club from the disastrous Thomas Frank hire.

Paratici was an asset to Tottenham, bringing in credible starters to a team that has been treading water these last few seasons. After just returning to the club in an official capacity this past summer transfer window, he just as soon left them in the dust this winter transfer window with a surprising move back to Italy to be Fiorentina's director of football.

Fiorentina are perhaps the only big club in European football who have been even more disappointing than Tottenham, because at the time Paratici announced his signing with the Viola, the Florence based side were dead last in Serie A despite being resurgent in the 2024/25 season.

Why did Fabio Paratici leave?

There have been a number of reasons speculated by Tottenham Hotspur fans as to why Fabio Paratici suddenly left the club, with most of them having to do with not wanting to work with an inept ownership, as well as two incompetent partners in sporting director Johan Lange and manager Thomas Frank.

Well, Paratici all but confirmed those rumors in his first public remarks since taking the Fiorentina job, taking a shot at the Tottenham ownership that fans will roundly appreciate.

Paratici said, via The Athletic's top Serie A reporter James Horncastle, "To do this job with a club like Fiorentina was a source of real motivation. To do it with these owners, who are very serious, and infrastructure that's super international, a brand known all over the world and people who share my ideas on the game was more than enough for me to come back and work here."

It is a biting shot at Tottenham, with the barb "very serious" both in praise of Fiorentina and a not so subtle jab at Spurs for not being serious. As much as Tottenham are a global brand and have a bigger footprint than the Viola since they are in London in the Premier League, they did not share Paratici's vision or ambition in the same way.

The fact that Paratici bolted in the winter for Fiorentina and thinks Fiorentina are more serious than a supposed Premier League Big Six club is a truly troubling statement of both intention from Paratici and of disgrace for what Spurs are slowly becoming.

Manchester City are 6 points off the top of the Premier League table. They've lost 5 points across 2 games against Tottenham Hotspur, who sit in 14th.Â

The first time the two sides met, the season was a week old. The Spurs’ defense kept a potentially lethal City attack in check. The team was aggressive in their press in the final third, with Micky Van der Ven going deep into City territory to press Cherki at times. At other points, it was Djed Spence who pushed higher up. The combination of an effective and dynamic press and recovering defensive plays led to an eventual clean sheet.

On the other end, the press directly contributed to the Spurs’ second goal as the forwards forced James Trafford into a fatal flaw. There were also encouraging signs from the wide areas of attack, with a combination between Pedro Porro, Richarlison, and Brennan Johnson leading to the opening goal on the counter.

Tottenham and Man City are polar opposites

Five months after the 2-0 Spurs win, things were quite different for the two sides heading into their second game of the season. Manchester City were in second place in the Premier League with plenty of additions from the side that was beaten at the Etihad. Gianluigi Donnarumma was in goal, Marc Guehi had been bought from Crystal Palace, and Antoine Semenyo had been signed from Bournemouth. They were still spearheaded by the League’s talismanic top-scorer, Erling Haaland.

Spurs ranked last in through balls completed and had one of the worst xG records while trailing in the league, thanks to their unimaginative attack. While the defense had improved from the previous season, they still had an unimpressive record and were routinely torn apart from the middle of the field as their press fell apart. When the press wasn’t the issue, it was often self-destructive offensive errors contributing directly to goals. Spurs rank as the worst team in terms of losing possession in “Dangerous areas” this season.

When Yves Bisousma lost the ball in the leadup to the first City goal with Spurs’ dysfunctional attack and City’s relentless press allowing almost six Blue shirts to pressure the defensive midfielder, it looked like this could be a sign of things to come. Spurs looked completely outmatched in a 3-4-3 system with the midfield looking non-existent after City were constantly able to bypass the Spurs’ attacking press.

In attack, Spurs resorted to low-percentage long-balls and crosses with players often isolated and no opportunities to win second balls. Already hampered by injuries to various key players against a quality team, Spurs made things worse for themselves when Radu Dragusin’s misguided clearance initiated a City attack for their second goal.

With a 2-0 halftime lead to the away side, the result looked like a foregone conclusion. In the second half, Spurs managed to produce one of the most inspired displays of football from the entire season. Christian Romero was replaced by Pape Sarr and Spurs shifted to a four at the back system, with a noticeably narrower build-up.

The versatility and energy of Sarr in the middle of the park combined with the tactical changes also enabled Conor Gallagher and Xavi Simons to pick up second balls, win duels and progress the ball among others. Spurs were also able to create overloads in wide areas through their full backs and wide attackers, also switching flanks to cause City problems.

For a team with the fewest through balls completed in the league, it was ironically a Xavi Simons throughball to Dominic Solanke that pulled one back for the hosts. The second goal was produced by brilliance from two players. Conor Gallagher relentlessly chased a loose ball and beat two City players to put in a cross in the box. The Solanke Finish that followed was one for the ages.Â

It’s hard to take too much encouragement for the games that follow considering the season Spurs have had, but if nothing else, they’ve had a significant say in the title race this season.

There is not one single individual solely responsible for the malaise that ails Tottenham Hotspur right now, because there are certain players, plenty of members of the ownership group, just about everyone in the front office, and manager Thomas Frank all in the circle of blame at this point.

As Spurs continue to drop points in the Premier League table, the threat of relegation is not one this club is above, as last season's 17th placed side in the league are arguably even worse under Thomas Frank in 2025/26 despite a few very succesful summer signings like Xavi Simons and the now injured Mohammed Kudus.

Spurs are coming off a disastrous January transfer window in which they lost key players to injury, director of football Fabio Paratici, and more trust from their fan base after signing precisely zero players in any of their key positions of need.

Tottenham are not fooled

Sporting director Johan Lange is now the main man making the decisions at the club after Paratici rather quickly bolted for Serie A disappointments Fiorentina, leaving Tottenham Hotspur supporters pretty scared for the future.

Lange's poor January transfer window has been akin to a vote of no confidence from the Tottenham faithful, who were already very sour on the failed Aston Villa executive. While Lange's eye for young talents, such as Lucas Bergvall, is worth praising, everything else he has done at Spurs has been well below par.

It looks like Tottenham, as an entire enterprise, are not in disagreement with their fans about not wanting to fully trust Johan Lange to be the one to call the shots in the board room. According to a report from the Daily Telegraphs's Matt Law, Tottenham are actually actively searching for a Fabio Paratici replacement in 2026.

Per Law, Spurs want to have two co sporting directors in charge of the club, rather than entrusting everything into one man. Right now, that is the case, as Spurs have yet to replace Paratici, so Lange is the one main sporting director running the show. But Tottenham do not want that to be the case, as they would like someone else to share recruitment duties.

It is a wise strategy, because while two heads can lead to conflict, when looking at Lange's track record and how badly things ended up in January without Paratici, perhaps Lange needs someone to conflict with him. And Lange can then focus on young talents with someone else making the veteran signings - or, as Paratici tried in the summer, attempt to talk Lange out of a bad coaching hire.

No fan base in the Premier League has been sold more blatantly false hopes and promises than Tottenham Hotspur, and that was illustrated quite plainly in the January transfer window. Spurs told their fans for months since firing Daniel Levy that more investment and big signings would be coming their way.

With Tottenham in dire need of a deep lying midfield playmaker and multiple attacking weapons, there was an expectation and even a narrative fed to the fans by the club that Spurs would be major players in the January transfer window.

Instead, the only proven player Spurs signed was Conor Gallagher after the injury to Rodrigo Bentancur, and as a box to box center midfielder, Gallagher was not even a substantial upgrade nor a new player at a key position of need.

Tottenham are worse than they were

So Spurs head into the second half of the 2025/26 Premier League season no better than they were before the January transfer window opened, and with even more key injuries mounting like those to Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Bergvall, the argument can be made that Spurs are actually even worse right now.

Yet that has not stopped sporting director Johan Lange from telling Tottenham Hotspur supporters that big things are still on the horizon for the club in the upcoming summer 2026 transfer window. On the rare occasion that he made himself available for public interview, Lange told fans upon the closure of the January 2026 transfer market, via Fabrizio Romano, “We will go into the summer with big ambitions, the plans are already drawn up and we have a clear picture of what positions and which profiles we need”.

As fed up as Tottenham fans are with manager Thomas Frank for all that he has done to waste great talents in the squad and turn Spurs into one of the most cowardly and inept sides in European football this season, there is much more ire directed by the fans towards the front office for the role they have played in the mess at the N17 currently, particularly after how woeful the January transfer window ended up being for the Lilywhites.

And no singular individual has absorbed more of the brunt of that criticism than Johan Lange, who was already deemed a failure in Premier League circles at Aston Villa - a club that is far better without him than with him. Lange and Spurs can yammer on about "big ambitions", but no matter how much they are promised change, Spurs fans are yet to see it. And none of them are buying.

Tottenham Hotspur have a serious attacking problem these days, and they didn't make it any better in the January transfer window. Spurs watched as Antoine Semenyo rejected them for Manchester City, and as the Man City wingers who could have joined them were also uninterested in latching themselves onto what appears to be a sinking ship under the dual leadership of Thomas Frank and Johan Lange.

Spurs have two gems in Mathys Tel and Wilson Odobert, a budding superstar in Mohammed Kudus, and a seemingly resurgent Dominic Solanke now that he is healthy. But they have little else outside of them, no proven goal scorers, and very little depth in the front line.

They do, however, have a third gem currently out on loan with Rangers, Mikey Moore, who was one of the stories of the early part of the 2024/25 season, including shining off the bench in the Europa League.

Mikey Moore had his breakout game

Moore earned the opportunity to start regularly for Rangers, and after a managerial change, he has finally proven himself useful to one of the giants of Scottish football. And just this past Wednesday against Kilmarnock in the Scottish Premiership, Moore had arguably his best game to date with his new team as part of a 5-1 win.

It was a grand all around attacking performance from Mikey Moore, who turned in a true winger's display from every angle. The Rangers faithful were even chanting the young loanee's name at the end of the game, which is rare sight but was 100 percent deserved based on how unplayable he was for the Kilmarnock defense.

Moore had both a goal and an assist for the Rangers for the first time this season, having not assisted in a Scottish Premier League game since October. Better yet, the 18 year old future superstar racked up five key passes and four dribbles completed in the game, setting a season high for key passes and tying his recently made season high in dribbles completed.

To this point of the 2025/26 season, Moore had not been especially impressive for Rangers despite some flashes of his star quality, but this was a game in which Moore truly put it all together and dominated. He will need to do this more often and against bigger opponents than Kilmarnock, and that is a big reason why Tottenham supporters want to see the teenager getting a bigger loan next season before he moves to Spurs. But this great game was his biggest statement to Tottenham thus far of what he can be and his potential to be part of the solution on the wings.

It is nearly impossible to find anyone who watches Tottenham Hotspur every week who actually feels any bit sorry for Thomas Frank, though you can leave it up a club as ghoulishly incompetent as this one to give supporters an ounce of pity for the most badly underperforming manager in all of European football.

Frank bears a lot of the blame for Tottenham dropping points like it were some sort of a deadly contagion. Spurs play a cowardly bland of football that is as unappetizing to watch as it is ineffective, and Frank is the grand architect of this defensive style of play that even Brentford - who, by the way, are better without him - would shudder at. And yet after every defeat, Frank tries to lie through his teeth and tell reporters that Spurs are playing well, as if anyone, let alone himself, would believe such a delusional assertion.

Tottenham have been ravaged by injuries, which certainly does not help, and the club has not signed players at key areas of need. Now, Frank could still be doing a lot better with the players he has at his disposal, actively holding back highly impressive young stars like Mathys Tel and Pape Matar Sarr for absolutely no good reason.

Tottenham are a joke

Yet after watching the entirety of that embarrassing winter transfer market unfold, it is hard not to help but feel that Thomas Frank has been equally screwed over by an atrocious front office brass that is more interested in the idea of printing money from a football club than winning - not knowing that losing and relegation would undo their entire theoretical enterprise.

Tottenham Hotspur needed a forward. They signed not one single attacking player despite getting even thinner up front with the sale of Brennan Johnson and the serious injury to their best attacking player, winger Mohammed Kudus.

Tottenham needed a playmaking midfielder from deep. They signed Conor Gallagher after the Rodrigo Bentancur, watched Lucas Bergvall fall with another multi month injury, and then proceeded to do precisely nothing else.

It was a disaster class of a transfer window, and with Frank treading water and nearly getting sacked, Spurs did nothing to help the coach battle out of this. Frank was saying all throughout the last couple of months, as politely as the Dane could possibly pound the table, that Spurs needed new players. Tottenham management failed him, because they do not care if he survives or is fired. They do not care about anything. The greedy buffoons want one thing above all else and that is their pockets lined with grease.

Tottenham Hotspur fans have more reasons to dislike their club than any other group of fans in world football right now. Their team is dropping points left and right, the threat of relegation is actually real, their winter transfer window was an objective disaster, and both their manager and the personnel in their front office are among the worst in the entire Premier League.

All the positives at Tottenham, such as talents like Xavi Simons, are being sapped out by a combination of injuries and outright incompetence, and Spurs supporters have not seen light at the end of the tunnel in years.

It looks like things are only going to get worse for Tottenham. After yet another public statement by Cristian Romero against the club that sold him a false bill of goods this past summer when they re-signed him despite having transfer interest from La Liga giants Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, the club captain has seemingly felt that he pulled the last straw.

Tottenham are so screwed

According to a report from respected Argentinian footballing journalist Gaston Edul, Romero will be leaving Tottenham Hotspur in the summer 2026 transfer window. Edul says that Romero has interest from a club in La Liga as well as another club in another league. He also reminds fans that Romero was close to receiving a formal transfer offer this past summer.

Tottenham managed to keep Romero against all odds last year, even though they fired his favorite coach in Ange Postecoglou. But now, Romero has seen how Tottenham are totally unserious and have even lied to their fans by promising big signings and ambition after firing Daniel Levy, only to somehow behave like an even smaller club throughout the course of the season.

Romero is obviously very frustrated with the idiocy of the board and of characters like Johan Lange, who have no legs to stand on. These are people who have failed time and time again and are the kinds of retread hires ENIC love to pretend to show their fans that they care about winning.

But Tottenham do not, and Edul is pretty blunt in his report, leaving no room for interpretation that Cristian Romero has already made up his mind and wants to leave Tottenham. If Romero does indeed exit and everyone knows it, Tottenham will lose their outspoken leader and best player, the hero of their Europa League triumph, for what will be pennies on the dollar. Great work.