The New York Times

Tottenham Hotspur became the first team to beat Everton at their new stadium in the Premier League after their set pieces proved too much for David Moyes’ side.

The first half was a tale of three corners, with Spurs taking the lead through Micky van de Ven’s header on 19 minutes, the first set-piece goal Moyes’ side have conceded in the league this season.

Everton equalised through Jake O’Brien’s header — only for two of his team-mates to be ruled offside and interfering sufficiently for the goal to be denied. Van de Ven then outmuscled Jordan Pickford to score his second from another corner in first-half stoppage time.

Everton had the greater possession across the game, but Pape Matar Sarr headed in a third in the 89th minute and the result lifted Tottenham to third in the Premier League table.

Here, The Athletic’s Jay Harris breaks down the key talking points.

How has Frank got Van de Ven scoring?

Micky van de Ven has scored five times for Spurs in 14 appearances under Thomas Frank. Any defender would be proud to boast that record, but it is even more remarkable when you consider that he did not score in any of his 22 matches last season.

Nobody was surprised that Spurs struggled to create chances from open play against Everton, but they are formidable at set pieces. Van de Ven scored twice from corners and they executed different routines on both occasions.

Tottenham’s opening goal arrived in the 19th minute when Mohammed Kudus hit an inswinging delivery deep towards the back post. Rodrigo Bentancur beat Vitaliy Mykolenko in the air and appeared to purposefully direct the ball with his shoulder back across the box, leaving Van de Ven with a simple chance from a few yards out.

Van de Ven’s second goal, which arrived in first-half stoppage time, was even sweeter. The Netherlands international lurked at the back post unmarked. He then ran behind Jake O’Brien along the goal line and darted in front of Jordan Pickford to connect with Pedro Porro’s curling ball.

It was an intelligent run which deceived Everton’s defence…

Van de Ven will take the headlines but Andreas Georgson deserves a lot of credit. The Swede, who previously worked with Frank at Brentford, has had a huge impact on Tottenham’s set-pieces since he joined the coaching staff in the summer. Corners and free-kicks were neglected by former head coach Ange Postecoglou but are now a key weapon in Spurs’ armoury.

What did Kolo Muani show he can do?

There was a moment in the first half which offered Tottenham supporters a glimpse of what Randal Kolo Muani is capable of.

The ball was pumped long towards the France international near the right wing, but instead of controlling it and waiting for his team-mates to catch up, he had the confidence to effortlessly roll past James Tarkowski. Everton’s defender made a desperate lunge to clear the ball and conceded the corner from which Spurs took the lead. If Tarkowski had not attempted the challenge, then Kolo Muani would have been free to charge into the box.

Kolo Muani’s speed and directness will be a valuable asset for Spurs when he is fully up to speed. A dead leg disrupted his momentum after arriving on a season-long loan from Paris Saint-Germain at the end of August. This was only his first start and fourth appearance overall.

There were other promising moments before Kolo Muani was replaced by Richarlison midway through the second half. In the 10th minute, the forward held off his marker to receive the ball inside the box from Mohammed Kudus and set up Xavi Simons with a deft first-time pass. Simons should have been stronger to hold off Michael Keane and shoot.

In the 35th minute, he reclaimed the ball from a corner and found Rodrigo Bentancur unmarked on the edge of the area. Bentancur’s crisp half-volley flew narrowly over the bar.

Kolo Muani did suffer from the same affliction which has impacted Richarlison and Mathys Tel this season. Spurs do not look fluid in attack and struggle to create chances. Kolo Muani tried to pose a consistent threat, but it is difficult when you rarely receive the ball.

It was an encouraging first look at the 26-year-old, though, and hopefully there will be a lot more to come.

How will Spurs feel about this performance?

A significant section of Tottenham’s fanbase probably groaned when they saw the starting XI against Everton included Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur. There is a growing feeling that the pair exclusively offer defensive security and not much else. That is slightly unfair but this performance underlines why lots of people are keen to see either Lucas Bergvall and Pape Matar Sarr start more regularly.

Bergvall is clever in possession and can glide past players to drive Spurs up the pitch while Sarr is a threat with his late runs into the penalty area. Sarr’s header in the 88th minute perfectly proved this point as he started the move in the centre circle and finished it inside Everton’s six yard box.

With Sarr and Bergvall on the bench, Frank tried a different approach to improve his side’s chance creation by moving Mohammed Kudus centrally behind Randal Kolo Muani. Brennan Johnson started out wide on the right instead with Xavi Simons on the opposite flank.

Kudus could not resist drifting towards his normal role out on the right and Xavi was ineffective so the changes did not exactly work even if Spurs won 3-0. It was important though that Spurs regained some momentum after losing to Aston Villa last week and somehow escaping with a point from Wednesday night’s Champions League tie with Monaco. It might not have been a pretty performance but it was a great result especially as Chelsea, Liverpool and Brighton all dropped points this weekend.

Why was O’Brien’s header ruled out?

Everton thought they had equalised on 24 minutes when Jake O’Brien headed in Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s corner, only for it to be overturned by the officials.

Referee Craig Pawson initially gave the goal but then ruled it out when sent to the screen by VAR Stuart Attwell, who had spotted that Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye were both in an offside position after O’Brien’s header.

Pawson decided after review that they were interfering sufficiently with Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario’s attempts to reach the ball for the goal to be ruled out.

What did Frank say?

“Very, very happy with that, I think overall very solid performance, especially pleased with the first half. I think we were good in phase one, good in phase two,” Frank said in his post-match press conference.

“In general, the second half was a little bit more of a dogfight at times. Going here to Everton, which is against a very good team, well set up by David Moyes and a very good home crowd, they’ve been unbeaten here so far. So, yeah, very happy, happy with obviously the set pieces as well. What I would say, the clean sheet mentality, that is a very good foundation to stand on.

“That gives you an ability to perform at a certain level where you want to always do a little bit more, but be really, how can you say, competitive and especially away from home.

What next for Spurs?

Wednesday, October 29: Newcastle (Away), Carabao Cup round of 16, 8pm UK, 4pm ET

(Photo: Carl Recine/Getty Images)

On a dark autumnal London morning, Eberechi Eze is going back to school. It is an early Thursday wake-up for the Arsenal forward as he prepares to return to his alma mater to give back to the place that helped make him.

At The John Roan School in Greenwich, south east London, hundreds of children have filtered into the gymnasium to listen to the England international. Such is the interest, three assemblies will be held this morning.

Despite being told to keep their eyes forward, excitable murmurs begin as soon as the first group spots Eze entering the room. He receives a hero’s welcome each time; teachers and students applaud the introduction of the former pupil.

Just days before Arsenal host his former club, Crystal Palace, at the Emirates on Sunday, the 27-year-old has come with supplies, specifically chess boards, pieces and clocks for the school’s chess club, and patience to answer tens of questions posed by smiling, wide-eyed teenagers with bright futures as hard-nosed journalists.

One student asks whether Arsenal’s £67.5million summer signing misses Palace, another wants to know why he did not join Tottenham Hotspur. The questions come thick and fast as if it were a press conference: Who is the best player you’ve played with? Are Arsenal going to win the league? Can you sign my school schedule?

For the record, Eze does believe Arsenal will win the Premier League, laughing off suggestions from the audience that Liverpool will contend as he answered an unwavering “yes.”

As for Arsenal’s north London rivals, “I was prepared to go to Tottenham, but from the moment Arsenal came, it was always going to be them,” he says, before winning the Spurs fans in the audience back by naming Harry Kane as the best he has played with. “He’s just great at what he does, scoring goals,” he says of his international captain.

So, what does he miss most about Palace, the club where he spent five seasons and is regarded as a great? “The people and relationships I made,” he says.

The purpose of Eze’s visit is to promote chess, another sport in which he excels. In partnership with chess.com, the Eze Foundation brought equipment for the school’s club, which meets weekly. Also in attendance this Thursday morning is the player’s older brother, Ikechi, who introduced him to chess and is the COO of the foundation, and Lorin D’Costa, a British chess coach and International Master (IM), who runs the chess charity She Plays to Win, which supports UK girls and young women in playing chess.

Ikechi and Lorin lead the assemblies, discussing the benefits of chess, of its ability to improve focus and resilience, and explaining the rules while encouraging students to attend the school’s club and to play online.

Through further questioning from students, Eze reveals his favourite chess piece is the knight, and his favourite chess player is GothamChess, an American IM, which is the second-highest chess rating, called Levy Rozman, who played Eze while he was at Crystal Palace in a YouTube video.

Though Eberechi has played chess for just a few years, in May, he won the sixth edition of chess.com’s PogChamps, a tournament between internet personalities, winning $20,000 for his foundation. He streamed the tournament on chess.com’s Twitch and YouTube and told students he is considering streaming his chess games in the future.

The Arsenal forward started playing chess after being persuaded to do so by his brother, also a footballer in the non-League, and former Crystal Palace forward, Michael Olise, telling The Athletic’s Matt Woosnam in 2023 that he began studying the sport by watching “YouTube videos of the best chess openings.”

The school pledges to create new inter-house chess tournaments, while Ikechi promises prizes and invites challengers to play him and his brother. They will, Ikechi says, attend the first tournament.

“Inside, I had something that was telling me just keep going, keep pushing until the end,” Eze tells students.

“This is what you want to do, this is your passion, this is where your heart is and no matter how many people say no, or how difficult the road looks, you have to keep it up.”

Fourteen years after being released from Arsenal, the road has led him back to the club where he started.

“My first (senior) Arsenal game was special. It almost didn’t feel real because it’s something I’ve been dreaming of for a long time,” Eze says in the assembly. “Playing for Arsenal from eight to 13, it’s been in the back of my mind wanting to go back. It felt like the realisation of a dream.”

Eze wrote himself into Palace folklore last season by scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup final to help the club win their first major honour.

He won his first England cap while at Palace too, against Malta in June 2023, scoring his first international goal, in a 3-0 win over Latvia at Wembley in March 2025. But this summer Arsenal came calling. It was a move he could not turn down.

After the sports hall has cleared, the students returning to their lessons with treasured photos and autographed postcards, Eze tells The Athletic how Palace will have a lasting impact on how he lives his life.

“(At Crystal Palace) I learnt that relationships and connecting with people are far more important than anything else,” he says. “What you can do for people, that feeling you can’t replicate in many other places, so that’s something that will live with me forever and something I will continue to live by for the rest of my career.”

Arsenal are top of the league table after eight games, while Crystal Palace are eighth, having beaten Liverpool at home this season. After a net spend of £245m over a busy summer, having finished runners-up for the last three league campaigns, Arsenal are looking strong, three points ahead of Manchester City in second.

“It will be a special day and game,” he says of Sunday. “It’s another game of football that I intend on winning, but the love that I have for Palace, the people, the fans will forever be there.”

Despite Arsenal’s good form since his arrival and an injury to captain Martin Odegaard creating an opening in the team, Eze has yet to hit his full stride. Primarily playing as a right-sided No 10, he has created two assists in seven league games (five of these starts). Over his 450 minutes, Eze has accumulated an xG of 1.33 (measuring the likelihood of a shot becoming a goal) — the fourth highest in the team. It is a good start but, he says, it could be better.

“It’s a bit different from when I was at Crystal Palace. Playing for Arsenal (matches) are more like a show or theatre,” Eze told students.

“There’s more pressure, playing for titles and in the Champions League, but it’s something I’ve dreamed of since being a kid. It’s not 100 per cent there at the minute, but I’m enjoying getting better.”

Tottenham Hotspur have announced the appointment of Eric Hinson to the board as a non-executive director.

The new appointee is an American aviation executive who will join as the fifth member of Spurs’ new-look board, alongside non-executive chair Peter Charrington, CEO Vinai Venkatesham, operations and finance director Matthew Collecott and lead independent director Jonathan Turner.

Hinson’s most recent role was as CEO and president of SimCom International, an Orlando-based pilot training simulator company.

Before then he was executive vice president of FlightSafety International, another leading pilot training organisation. He also sits on the board of Space Florida and was recently the chair of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, and was previously president and CEO of Piaggio America, the US subsidiary of an Italian aircraft manufacturer.

Before his career in the aviation industry, Hinson was a pilot with the US Navy, at one point flying the F/A-18 Hornet. The hope at the club is that Hinson’s corporate experience will help with Tottenham’s continued growth.

“To deliver more and better for our fans requires a broad mix of expertise and experience at Board level,” said Tottenham chairman Charrington in a statement released on the website on Thursday morning. “Eric brings valuable expertise in high-performing and high-pressure corporate and military teams which, combined with the strengths of the wider team, will put us in an even stronger position to deliver on our goals.”

Hinson’s arrival returns the Tottenham board to five people at the end of a year of dramatic change at the club. Charrington and Venkatesham only joined the board earlier this year, Charrington initially as a non-executive director in March, before Venkatesham arrived in June.

Long-standing executive director Donna-Maria Cullen stepped down this summer, and then former executive chairman Daniel Levy was surprisingly removed last month, ending almost 25 years running the club.

Since then the club has tried to focus on stability after a transformational summer. “They (the Lewis family) are also focused on stability,” Venkatesham said in an interview four days after Levy’s dismissal. “They know there has been lots of change at the Club and now it’s time for some calm and for some stability.”

Charrington chaired the first meeting of the new-look four-man board on September 26. There are currently no further plans to add a sixth member after Hinson’s appointment.

Tottenham Hotspur escaped from Monaco with a crucial Champions League point, despite being outplayed by their Ligue 1 opponents.

Guglielmo Vicario made eight saves, including some very impressive ones from Folarin Balogun and Jordan Teze. Former Liverpool forward Takumi Minamino also missed a series of second-half chances, as Monaco cut through Spurs every time they attacked.

But after fighting back at Bodo/Glimt to rescue an unlikely 2-2 draw last month, Thomas Frank’s Spurs have another Champions League point on the board. They are unbeaten after three games in the competition this season.

The Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke and Elias Burke assess the action…

Good point, bad performance?

This was another game that will force Tottenham fans to ask themselves what matters more: results or performances?

Taking a point from one of their hardest away games in the Champions League’s league phase is an acceptable result. Spurs have taken five points from three games, with home games against Copenhagen and Slavia Prague and a difficult trip to Paris Saint-Germain to come before Christmas. On a week when so many goals were scored in this competition, a clean sheet, Spurs’ first since Doncaster Rovers one month ago, is perfectly creditable.

But no Spurs fan can have enjoyed this performance. Monaco were by far the better team, and while they shaded the first half, they cut through Tottenham time after time in the second. Only heroics from Vicario and some sloppy finishing kept the score level. Spurs looked disjointed and passive for long periods. Wilson Odobert had a few bright moments but Tottenham did not create much. And even with Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur sitting in front of the defence, they looked remarkably easy to play through, as illustrated in the match dashboard below.

In the end, it was as unlikely a point as the one that Spurs took from Bodo/Glimt last month — it is very helpful for the league table, but will still leave some fans asking questions.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

Midfield quandary continues

After Sunday’s 2-1 defeat against Aston Villa, where Tottenham were booed by their home support, fans might have expected Frank to tinker with his defensive midfield pivot.

Palhinha and Bentancur offer security and defensive proficiency that were sorely lacking for most of last season, but they are not the creative types. Owing to Palhinha’s importance as a ball-winner, Bentancur was perhaps the more likely of the two to be rotated for this trip to Monaco, but Frank decided to stick with the duo that provided the base for the 2-0 away win against Manchester City in August.

The result in Monaco was much of the same. Palhinha continued to be a defensive force, while Bentancur floated beside him and kept possession ticking over within the much-derided ‘horseshoe’ structure that has characterised Tottenham’s in-possession play under the Dane. Xavi Simons, who was largely ineffective against Villa, dropped out for Lucas Bergvall, while Archie Gray came in at left-back to replace Djed Spence.

Bergvall had a difficult evening. He struggled to shake off his markers in possession and lost the ball in a dangerous position in the first half, leading to a big chance for Balogun that was saved by the excellent Vicario. Like Simons, Bergvall looked to operate between the lines but was rarely found. Gray, playing in a position that may have allowed him to drift centrally and help Spurs’ build-up, struggled to make a positive impact.

Bergvall and Bentancur were replaced on the hour mark for Simons and Pape Matar Sarr. The athleticism and positioning of Sarr helped Spurs defensively, but Monaco remained in the ascendancy. Under immense pressure from their far superior opposition, Spurs found opportunities to make the difference on the other end few and far between.

The most encouraging moment came after Randal Kolo Muani, who impressed in his 20-minute cameo, combined with Sarr to set up another substitute, Brennan Johnson, on his left foot inside the box, but his shot was blocked. For Spurs, who lacked creative inspiration again, it was about as good as it got.

Elias Burke

Vicario saves the day

In recent weeks, the Tottenham goalkeeper has been criticised by some Tottenham fans over his performances. When he was beaten twice from outside the box against Aston Villa on Sunday, it was taken as proof that he is not the elite shot-stopper that Spurs need. Some have even been calling for the promotion of Czech 22-year-old Antonin Kinsky.

But tonight was a reminder that Vicario is still a very effective operator at the top level. He kept Spurs in the game with a series of impressive saves. There were two from Balogun from close range in the first half, the first after Maghnes Akliouche had cut through the Spurs defence. In the second half, Vicario saved at his near post from Akliouche, dived to his left to deny Aleksandr Golovin and then stopped a point-blank Teze header soon after.

Without Vicario, Tottenham would have been well beaten. It felt like the greatest performance by a Spurs goalkeeper in Europe since some of Hugo Lloris’ biggest nights, such as his display away at Bayer Leverkusen in 2016. It goes to show that even though Vicario can look frantic or skittish at times, he remains an extremely effective shot-stopper. That said, Frank will surely wonder on the flight home why Monaco created so many good chances on the night.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

What did Thomas Frank say?

We will bring you this after he has spoken at the post-match press conference.

What next for Tottenham?

Let’s face it: Tottenham Hotspur have been strikingly unimaginative from open play under Thomas Frank thus far.

From a side as capable of blowing top teams away as they were dropping points against relegation candidates under Ange Postecoglou, Frank, to his credit, has changed the profile of this Tottenham team in remarkably quick time. They are visibly organised, compact and a physical match for anyone. With these principles, he turned Brentford into a stable top-flight outfit, capable of upsetting giants who spend as much money in one window as the west Londoners have in their history.

But long throws (complete with sideline towels) and orchestrated set pieces can only get Spurs so far. Expectation is greater at the Europa League champions. As soon as results could no longer justify performances, it was inevitable that seeds of discontent would begin to flower, as evidenced by boos at the final whistle of Sunday’s 2-1 home defeat to Aston Villa.

The outcome of the match was somewhat telegraphed by the Dane in his pre-match press conference on Friday. “I expect an unbelievably tight game on Sunday that we’re very positive about and that we will do everything to edge,” he said. It proved instructive on how he’d set up to face Unai Emery.

Like Frank, the Spaniard revels in devising specific game plans for tight matches, allowing individual quality to prove the difference. With that in mind, it was no surprise to see the game played in the margins. Spurs scored from a set piece, and Villa won the match with two excellent strikes from outside the box that Frank later suggested he was content to let them have. Setting up a side to play in the margins can work, as evidenced against Villarreal in the Champions League and against Leeds at Elland Road, where long-distance efforts from Mohammed Kudus and Mathys Tel gave Spurs three points.

But the numbers speak for themselves. Tottenham rank 12th in the Premier League for expected goals (xG) from open play and 15th for big chances created, but fourth for goals scored and first for shot conversion rate. In other words, they’ve created like a lower mid-table side and finished like champions. That discrepancy tends to level itself out across the course of a full season.

Perhaps with serial xG over-performers Harry Kane and Son Heung-min still in their side, those numbers could be moderately sustainable, but it’s unreasonable to expect their replacements will ever reach a comparable level in a Spurs shirt. Dominic Solanke has been out injured for all but 39 minutes of the league season, and his attacking deputies are either inexperienced, inconsistent, or both.

The absence of creativity from open play is a pressing issue, and the inability to find Xavi Simons, Tottenham’s €60million (£51.8m; $70m) summer signing, is at the heart of it.

As the pass network demonstrates below, Simons was left on an island against Villa, positioned far more centrally than in previous games this season, but rarely connecting with his team-mates or receiving punched passes forward from his midfield team-mates.

His only notable connection was with Wilson Odobert — an extension of their promising interactions against Leeds — but the narrow line indicates it was not particularly frequent.

As the ball shuttled within the “horseshoe” from Odobert to Kudus through the midfield and defence, Simons was not given much of an opportunity to stamp his authority on the game. Whether Simons started or not, the pattern in Spurs’ most recent three games looked similar in their aesthetic — working possession from side to side without any penetration through the centre of the pitch and rarely finding their No 10.

Without Cristian Romero, who sustained a minor adductor injury in the warm-up and was replaced by Kevin Danso, Bentancur dropped into the back line and assumed ball-progression responsibility. That meant one fewer player in the middle of the pitch to find between the lines.

Here’s an example. If Bentancur had played the pass into Palhinha, who was not showing to receive the ball, Villa midfielder Boubacar Kamara would have engaged, opening space for Simons or Odobert to attack the space in behind.

Expecting Palhinha to receive a pass on the half-turn, draw in Villa defenders, and thread a sharp pass into Odobert is to ask a seasoned Portugal international to operate outside his strengths, but without that, it’s difficult for the No 10s to thrive. Instead, the Uruguay international passed to Danso, who sent the ball long down the wing. This tactic can prove fruitful, with Kudus very capable of manufacturing goalscoring opportunities from long balls sent in his direction, but it became predictable, and Villa’s defence got to grips with it quickly.

Here’s another instance shortly after. Simons, who finds himself in space here, is completely disconnected. A pass into his feet from that position is one that perhaps only Romero and Porro have the vision and quality to pull off.

It’s in contrast to Simons’ previous game in a Spurs shirt against Leeds, which Frank described as his best so far. The example below highlights one instance when Destiny Udogie’s sprint down the left side opened space for Simons and Odobert to craft opportunities from the half-space. While Djed Spence has had an outstanding start to the season, he prefers to dribble with his stronger right foot, which can lead to a less fluent and interchangeable left side.

Spurs’ most effective moments from midfield were not crafted with the ball, but earned without it. Palhinha’s tough tackling on the halfway line set Tottenham away on transition opportunities on several occasions, but Spurs’ young attack was wasteful and lacked the physicality to impose themselves against Villa’s strong and athletic defence.

There are mitigating factors. James Maddison was central to Spurs’ ball progression last season as one of the league’s most gifted line-breaking passers, but he will miss most, if not all, of the season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury. Frank was in the market for another No 10 before Maddison went down on the pre-season tour, perhaps indicating he envisioned the 28-year-old feeding another creative type from deeper.

Dejan Kulusevski, who would shoulder much of that responsibility, is also out with a long-term injury. Lucas Bergvall is more forward-thinking than Palhinha or Bentancur, but he is only 19, as is Archie Gray. Still, to unlock Simons, who was virtually absent on the offensive end last weekend, Spurs must give him the ball. That requires higher-risk passing from deeper positions. Reading between the lines, it’s something Frank recognises.

“I want him to a little bit more dictate the game and get on the ball when it’s tough because he’s so good on the ball,” Frank said about Bentancur ahead of the Leeds match. “He is so composed and so good to get the ball in tight areas and get out of situations.”

Tottenham have been excellent away from home this season, with the win at the Etihad Stadium the signature result of Frank’s early tenure. In that match, as well as the Super Cup penalty shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain, the midfield made their stamp with hard tackling and aggressive pressing. That may also prove to be the case against Monaco this evening.

But to make the significant outlay on Simons worthwhile, fewer sideways passes and more high-risk balls between the lines into his feet seem essential.

Ultimately, Tottenham Hotspur lost 2-1 to Aston Villa because of two fantastic strikes from outside the box, courtesy of Morgan Rogers and Emi Buendia. No one could have anticipated the quality of those efforts, but the game overall was entirely predictable. It was, as Thomas Frank said afterwards, “everything I expected it to be”.

The 2025-26 Premier League campaign has started with the most concerns about the league’s entertainment value since way back in 2004-05, when football seemed to have taken a particularly defensive turn.

It was Tottenham who accidentally found themselves at the centre of the debate back then, when Jose Mourinho introduced the ‘parking the bus’ phrase to English football when complaining about Tottenham’s successful defensive approach against his Chelsea side in a goalless draw.

Twenty-one years on, Tottenham again feel like the best representation of the sudden shift in this season’s football style.

After two years of Spurs being coached by Ange Postecoglou, with all the obvious strengths and weaknesses of his front-foot philosophy, Frank is a coach renowned for his pragmatism. Under his leadership, his previous side, Brentford, were known for their direct play and emphasis on set pieces.

While it would be unreasonable to expect his Tottenham side to have figured everything out by mid-October, this was a performance that summed everything up: not just where Tottenham are at, but also where the division overall finds itself.

This was a contest between — in the context of European football — two good sides. Tottenham are the Europa League holders, Aston Villa briefly caused European champions Paris Saint-Germain a real scare in the Champions League last season. Both are going well this season in Europe, too. On that basis alone, we should have expected a reasonable amount of quality football.

But, instead, it was overwhelmingly based around set pieces. Tottenham’s opening goal featured two powerful midfielders combining in the box, in the aftermath of a set-piece situation, with Rodrigo Bentancur slamming home Joao Palhinha’s knockdown. That in itself was typical of the season in a different way: deep midfielders have contributed more than their fair share of goals this season, and of Spurs’ starting XI here, Palhinha is Tottenham’s top scorer this campaign.

It’s not just about corners and free kicks, either. The long throw is ultra-fashionable again, and while this is clearly a useful part of any side’s armoury, Kevin Danso’s deliveries constituted Spurs’ main weapon against Villa, which felt particularly odd considering he wasn’t even due to start, only stepping up late on when Cristian Romero pulled out in the warm-up.

Danso gets great distance on his throws, and one caused Villa serious problems, but by the time he’d hurled the ball into the box for the sixth time, usually after an inevitably long wait while the centre-back jogged over to the touchline and had located the nearest towel, you couldn’t help feeling that this approach was wasting too much time and giving the opposition a breather.

In open play, it’s clear that Tottenham’s attackers don’t offer any cohesive combinations, which you can say about half the league at the moment. That is understandable considering Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons are new arrivals, while Wilson Odobert and Mathys Tel arrived last summer and in January respectively. But here they were operating on four different wavelengths, with Tel spending most of the first half making a run, not getting the pass, then gesturing to where he had wanted it.

Of the front four, it is Kudus who has been brightest this season by showing good understanding with his team-mates, most obviously in the opening game of the season when he twice assisted Richarlison in a 3-0 win over Burnley.

Simons, as the No 10, is tasked with connecting everyone around him: two midfielders who rarely pass forward, two wingers who tend to stay wide, and a centre-forward who isn’t involved much in build-up play. That’s a tough task for a 22-year-old who has recently moved to a new league.

Afterwards, Frank acknowledged the limitations of his side’s attack, but indicated that his initial focus was on improving “the four to five good transitional moments, where we could have done more”.

The understanding required to break down deeper defences, you suspect, will take even longer, which is fair enough, but it is also grating considering Tottenham could, until fairly recently, depend on Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, statistically the best partnership the Premier League has seen at creating goals for each other. The man who completed the trio in latter years, Dejan Kulusevski, is missed as much for his club as he is for his country.

Like most Premier League clubs, Tottenham have decent depth. The division’s financial dominance over other leagues isn’t necessarily reflected in the quality of the top players, but in the backups.

Tottenham are able to bring on players such as Richarlison and Randal Kolo Muani. The former scored the best goal at the last World Cup, the latter nearly played a decisive role in the final. Another sub, Brennan Johnson, scored the Europa League winner. Perhaps the most exciting reserve is Lucas Bergvall, who offers badly needed ability to knit things together; without a player in that mould, things were too easy for Aston Villa.

Indeed, Unai Emery’s analysis was succinct and telling. “We adapted to everything tactically,” he said when asked to explain why his side came out on top. “In duels, set pieces, throw-ins.” And they, slightly depressingly, are the main qualities needed to win a Premier League game at the moment.

It had all looked so good for Tottenham Hotspur and Thomas Frank after five minutes.

They flew out of the traps to take a 1-0 lead through Rodrigo Bentancur but that was as good as it got for Spurs. Lovely goals from Morgan Rogers and Emiliano Buendia turned the game on its head to inflict a second defeat of the season on the home team.

For much of the first half, Spurs had been good value for their lead, but Rogers equalised in the 37th minute with a brilliant right-foot shot from 25 yards — only the sixth league goal Guglielmo Vicario has conceded this season.

Villa grew into the game from there, edging what became a scrappy second half and deservedly taking the lead when Buendia bent a shot beyond Vicario in the 77th minute.

The Athletic’s Elias Burke analyses the action.

A return to fast starts for Frank?

His sides don’t tend to hang around. Since the start of the 2024-25 season, teams managed by Frank have scored more goals in the opening five minutes than any club in the Premier League.

Five of those were at Brentford, but against Villa, Frank brought that lightning start to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the first time. It was evident from the European Super Cup in August that Frank would place more emphasis on set pieces than his predecessor, Ange Postecoglou, and they have continued to be threatening from corners and free kicks.

It was no surprise, then, that Bentancur opened his account for the season after the ball had been recycled from a corner.

Bentancur, who signed a contract extension days before Tottenham’s 2-1 win against Leeds United last time out, profited from a smart header across the box from Joao Palhinha, converting on the volley from eight yards out.

And for U.S. readers

It is Tottenham’s earliest goal of the league season. Flying out of the blocks is a trait of Frank’s sides — it was a shame they retreated so much after Rogers’ equaliser.

What happened after Spurs’ ideal opening?

When they go ahead under Frank, Tottenham tend to stay there. Even after Leeds had equalised, they rebounded in the second half to take the lead and win the game. While it was hardly a collapse, Tottenham let their ascendancy slip against Villa.

Like the 1-0 home win against Villarreal in the Champions League, Tottenham went ahead early and sat on it. Being effective and efficient from set pieces is an important string for any top side to have, but their lack of creativity on the ball — Xavi Simons was largely absent — meant Spurs were over-reliant on crafting opportunities from dead-ball situations.

Palhinha and Bentancur did an excellent job, particularly in the first half, of winning tackles in Villa’s midfield, not allowing their creative players time and space to play the ball through the heart of the pitch. But when they won the ball, setting Spurs off on the counter, Tottenham’s attackers failed to do anything with it.

There were encouraging signs of a burgeoning partnership between Wilson Odobert, Mathys Tel and Destiny Udogie, who has a minor knee injury, against Leeds, but none of that was evident against Villa.

Spurs were fortunate to escape that Villarreal game with three points, but Unai Emery’s side made their lack of attacking endeavour pay.

It marks Frank’s second home defeat at Spurs, and given the difficulty of their fixture schedule until December, it’s an untimely slip. Next up in the league are Everton, followed by Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Fulham.

How did Danso do after a late call-up?

As club captain and arguably Tottenham’s most influential player, an injury sustained in the warm-up to Cristian Romero felt like a significant pre-match blow. But with another solid performance, Kevin Danso proved he is a capable deputy.

Danso has typically performed best for Spurs as an outside defender in a back three, but he assumed Romero’s role in partnering Micky van de Ven from the right side of central defence. Aside from his world-class ability as a distributor, Spurs miss Romero’s physicality and aggressiveness in central defence most, but Danso dealt well with Donyell Malen’s pace.

In one instance in the first half, Malen, who went touch-tight with the Austria international until he was replaced on the hour by Ollie Watkins, span in behind Danso and looked to be heading towards a one-v-one opportunity with Vicario. But Danso recovered excellently, chasing back to ease the forward off the ball, ala Van de Ven.

Few can replicate Romero’s passing from defence, but Danso comes with his own weapon: a wicked long throw. He had the opportunity to use it in the second half, but Tottenham failed to capitalise when the ball broke. Overall, a positive first league start of the season, and an encouraging signal that he can step up when needed. He was not to blame for Spurs letting their lead slip.

What did Frank say?

“The way the game panned out was exactly how I expected it to — a very even game against a very good Villa team, set up well by Unai Emery, where we performed quite well. Maybe not through the roof — through the roof is totally dominating Villa. We came out with good intensity, very aggressive and were good in high pressure.

“We actually created some good opportunities and defensively, we were excellent.

“There’s a couple of things you can look into when you look defensively. We gave away, what, eight shots? We gave two goals away in a position outside the box with a lot of players behind the ball. If you said to me before the game, they will shoot from there… it’s not dangerous, but a fantastic quality shot from Rogers. So in those nothing moments or very little moments, they had more quality.”

What next for Tottenham?

Ange Postecoglou is nothing if not a compelling talker and on Friday, the Nottingham Forest head coach delivered another defiant defence of his record in English football.

Speaking before Saturday’s home game against Chelsea — when Postecoglou will be aiming to earn the first victory in his eighth game at Forest — the Australian claimed he had been branded “a failed manager who’s lucky to get this job” after overseeing Tottenham Hotspur’s 17th-place finish last season.

“I know you’re smirking at me but that’s what’s being said, right, and I can find the print where that’s actually said,” Postecoglou told reporters.

The 60-year-old’s aim was to present “an alternative story”, centred not on Tottenham’s league finish but their historic Europa League triumph in Bilbao, the club’s first trophy in 17 years.

“Maybe I’m a manager who if you give them time, the story always ends the same. At all my previous clubs, it ends the same — with me and a trophy,” he said, echoing his promise to win silverware for Spurs in his second season.

As he acknowledged, the prevailing view is that Postecoglou is under “serious pressure” at Forest — perhaps even that Saturday could be his final chance to save his job — but his message was clear: with time, he will deliver again.

“Some will look at the weeds, I’ll look at what’s growing,” he said.

To emphasise his point, Postecoglou ran through his two years in north London (in a single answer spanning over five minutes), pointing out that he had joined a club scarred by the Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte eras, which finished eighth in the 2022-23 season and lost record goalscorer Harry Kane on the eve of his first league game.

“Somehow that year has disappeared from the record books. In fact, it was used as a reason for me losing my job because even Tottenham decided to exclude the first 10 games – because they were an anomaly, apparently,” he said, seemingly referring to Tottenham’s statement confirming his departure, which pointed out that “we recorded 78 points from the last 66 Premier League games” – excluding his fast start.

“Although the first ten games here are very important, apparently,” he continued. “Anyway, we finished fifth and I got them back into European football, which a club like Tottenham should be.”

Postecoglou then talked up his success in winning the Europa League, which he said had enabled the club to shed its ‘Spursy’ tag and reap the rewards of a return to the Champions League – and insisted there was no need for an “in-depth” justification of their record-low finish in the Premier League last season.

“Just have a look at the last five or six team sheets of us in the league last year and see what I prioritised – who was on the bench and who was playing,” he said.

It was a typically forthright speech, full of the sarcasm, self-belief and grit characteristic of Postecoglou.

From arriving from Athens with his family as a five-year-old, he has clawed his way from the relative backwater of Australian football to the very top of the European game. Postecoglou is a seasoned fighter and has always used the doubters — real or exaggerated — as a potent fuel.

He has a point about his first season at Spurs. Fast start or not, his side probably did overperform in finishing fifth after losing Kane while transitioning to a new style of play, and on occasion Spurs, were the victims of bad luck.

Even now, it is possible to wonder what might have been if Son Heung-min’s ‘goal’, which would have put Spurs 2-0 up against Chelsea nearly two years ago, had not been chalked off for a fractional offside; Spurs may not have lost Micky van de Ven and James Maddison to serious injuries and Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie to red cards in a 4-1 defeat, the start of a run of one point from five games.

Postecoglou himself was unfortunate that a freak set of circumstances left him at odds with a majority of supporters during the 2-0 defeat at home against Manchester City in May 2024, which appeared to fray his relationship with the fanbase.

His defence of his second season, however, is more contentious. Even factoring in the slew of mitigating circumstances — an unprecedented injury pile-up over winter and the obvious focus on the Europa League — Spurs chronically underperformed in the top flight, finishing the campaign with a club-record 22 league defeats.

Their success in Bilbao was seismic, but it should not be forgotten that Spurs started the season as favourites for the Europa League alongside runners-up Manchester United.

It was only because both clubs had such wretched domestic seasons that it came to feel so miraculous that they met in the final. On paper, Spurs had one of the two strongest squads in UEFA’s secondary competition and benefitted from the rule change that meant no Champions League clubs dropped down into the Europa League.

They did not beat anyone en route to the final that they were not expected to, and their style of play in the knockouts was often attritional.

That is not to undermine their achievement, but to point out that winning the Europa League is not necessarily enough to excuse Tottenham’s league form.

There has been little, too, about Thomas Frank’s start at Spurs (or indeed Postecoglou’s time so far at Forest) to suggest the club made a mistake in replacing him with the Dane in the summer.

More relevant, though, than the actual merits of Postecoglou’s presentation of his time at Spurs is whether his passionate rhetoric can convince Forest’s fans and, most importantly, owner Evangelos Marinakis to stick with him if results do not dramatically improve.

During his two years in the capital, there were occasions when Postecoglou talked himself into a hole, but more frequently, the sheer force of his conviction in himself and his approach helped to relieve the pressure on him or change the narrative around his team.

Postecoglou’s oratory may even have helped to keep him in a job for so long. It is hard to imagine a coach who was less expressive publicly — say, his Forest predecessor Nuno Espirito Santo — surviving the same series of results and performances without being able to continually sell his vision to a large section of the fanbase (and indeed the media).

For Spurs fans, most of whom are now occupied by the intrigue of a new era at the club, Postecoglou’s status is already decided. To many, he is a hero who delivered one of the finest nights in the club’s modern history in Bilbao, but could have few complaints about his eventual dismissal.

The bigger question is whether his past achievements and present rhetoric will be enough to keep him in his latest job.

Tottenham Hotspur head coach Thomas Frank said he is taking it “day by day and week by week” with Dominic Solanke, who had minor ankle surgery on October 1.

Solanke missed most of pre-season with an ankle injury before returning as a substitute in Tottenham’s UEFA Super Cup penalty shoot-out defeat to Paris Saint-Germain on August 13.

He then featured as a second-half substitute in their opening two Premier League matches against Burnley and Manchester City, but has not played since their 2-0 away win at the Etihad Stadium on August 23.

The 28-year-old has returned to individual training after his ankle procedure, but Frank is keen not to rush the England international back to action.

“Dom’s progressing well after the surgery,” Frank said in his Friday press conference ahead of Tottenham’s home match against Aston Villa on Sunday. “(He’s) been on the pitch, actually don’t know if he was today, but definitely was the two days before that. So, the detail is, he’s progressing and he’s going forward. So that’s good.

“He’s progressing now, but he’s still training on his own, so I don’t want to be too excited or too negative either way. So I’m actually taking it a little bit day by day and week by week to see how quickly he progresses. Dom is a naturally fit player. There are some players that naturally get that fitness up to a high level.

“But of course, we also need to take into consideration he basically hasn’t trained with the team since July. But that’s not saying it will take three months to get up to pace. It’s just that it will take a little bit of time to get up to pace. How long? I don’t know.”

Mathys Tel started as the central striker in Spurs’ 2-1 away win against Leeds United before the international break, scoring the opening goal. He continued his goalscoring form with France’s Under-21s by netting once in each of their fixtures, a 6-1 win against Estonia and a 6-0 win against the Faroe Islands, where team-mate Wilson Odobert also starred. Richarlison, who has scored three goals in five league starts for Spurs this season, played 26 minutes for Brazil over the break.

Randal Kolo Muani, who signed for Tottenham on a season-long loan from PSG on deadline day, played 45 minutes in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Watford over the break, stepping up his recovery from a dead leg. He is in contention to make his league debut for Tottenham on Sunday.

“Kolo Muani has trained now for two weeks with the team,” Frank said. “So that’s good. He looks better and better. He will be in contention for the squad. That’s positive.”

In less positive news, Yves Bissouma sustained an ankle ligament injury while on international duty with Mali. Bissouma, who has not featured for Spurs this season, was a second-half substitute in Mali’s 4-1 World Cup qualifying win over Madagascar, but was stretchered off shortly after entering the pitch.

“Biss, unfortunately had a situation with the national team,” said Frank. “I think everyone saw that. He’s got a ligament injury to his ankle, that will keep him out for weeks.”

Mali, who have failed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup next summer, will compete in the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco this winter.

Bissouma was left out of the Tottenham squad for the UEFA Super Cup due to disciplinary reasons and was also omitted from their roster for the Champions League initial phase.

Thomas Frank will be pleased with how much Tottenham Hotspur have progressed during his first four months in charge.

There has been a lot of drama off the field with Daniel Levy’s departure as executive chairman, interest from multiple parties in a potential sale and the official return of Fabio Paratici, but results have been mostly positive apart from a penalty shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Super Cup and a 1-0 loss to Bournemouth in the Premier League.

Spurs are third in the Premier League table after seven games and have the joint-second best defensive record. They have taken four points from their opening two Champions League games and reached the fourth round of the Carabao Cup. Late equalisers against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Brighton & Hove Albion hint at a newfound resilience.

As a bonus, they broke their international break curse by beating Leeds United. Frank is making the slightly awkward task of replacing Ange Postecoglou look easy.

However, the next seven weeks will give us a better idea of what Spurs could achieve in the Dane’s first year. They have a daunting fixture list which includes a north London derby, two trips to St. James Park, home matches against Chelsea and Manchester United, plus a reunion with PSG (in the Champions League).

How can they emerge from this brutal period unscathed?

According to Frank, the last time Spurs challenged for multiple trophies in the same season was in 2018-19. Back then, Maurico Pochettino’s side lost the Champions League final to Liverpool, finished fourth in the Premier League and reached the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup.

After a decent start to the 2024-25 campaign under Postecoglou, things unravelled after the October international break. Spurs lost four of their next eight league matches and went on a three-game winless run in the Europa League. As the fixtures piled up, so did their injury list.

During the hiring process, Frank enquired about why Spurs suffered so many injuries last season. In his first press conference, he spoke about the importance of rotation.

“There’s a lot of talk about the games players are playing and the tempo and the intensity, but hopefully the way we train — building layers, building robustness into the players — is going to be a big part in making them more available throughout the season,” Frank said.

“Hopefully, we can make good decisions, with feeling, with knowledge, with numbers. When to rotate and when to rest is a big thing as well.”

He expanded on this before they beat Doncaster Rovers in the Carabao Cup last month. “If you want to compete in all four tournaments, you need to be good enough to pick the right team every single time,” the 52-year-old said.

“We’re also aware that no player can play 60 games times 90 minutes. So, it’s that balance we need to hit throughout the season, not only because we are facing Doncaster. It could be Brighton, last week it was Villarreal. We made some changes and we need to hit that perfect number of players that rotate and then a strong team.”

Frank managed Brentford for two full seasons in the Championship and had to juggle 46 league games along with cup competitions. In the 2020-21 campaign, they finished third and lost to Spurs in a one-legged semi-final in the Carabao Cup. On average, he made 2.1 changes to the starting XI for every game in an attempt to keep the squad fresh.

Brentford recorded their best points total (59) in the Premier League in 2022-23 — and Frank did not name an unchanged line-up once. Ivan Toney started every game when fully fit but Frank would switch between Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa. Ethan Pinnock, Ben Mee and Pontus Jansson rotated at centre-back.

Last season, he tweaked his approach because Wissa, Mbeumo, Kevin Schade and Mikkel Damsgaard were consistently performing at a high level. Brentford made 45 changes to their starting XI — fewer than any other team in the division. That indicates Frank recognises when to keep using the same players to maintain momentum. Brentford were also out of the Carabao Cup and FA Cup come mid-January, so they were only in one competition from then on.

Frank’s selection decisions since he was appointed at Spurs suggest load management has been at the forefront of his mind. Richarlison missed their first pre-season game against Reading as the staff were “building him.” The Brazilian was replaced in the starting XI by Mathys Tel for the victories over West Ham United and Leeds. Spurs’ careful handling of Richarlison is working because he has already started more league games (five) than he managed last season (four).

Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur were dropped for the opening game against Burnley, three days after the UEFA Super Cup, which allowed Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall and Pape Matar Sarr to excel. Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero have started every league game but were rested for last month’s win over Doncaster. Romero missed the 2-2 draw against Bodo/Glimt with a knock and returned to face Leeds. Djed Spence and Destiny Udogie have alternated at left-back. Spence replaced Pedro Porro on the right for the 1-1 draw with Wolves.

Spurs suffered a lot of problems last season when fringe players were thrust into the starting XI because of injuries to key figures. They were usually undercooked due to a lack of playing time and often picked up their own fitness issues. Radu Dragusin only started one of Tottenham’s opening nine matches. He then started their next 14 top-flight fixtures before suffering an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in January’s Europa League tie against Elfsborg. Timo Werner sustained a hamstring injury in the same month following a 3-0 win over Tamworth in the FA Cup.

Frank has tried to give everybody game time to ensure they are sharp. Tel was left out of the Champions League squad but has started two league games. Kevin Danso and second-choice goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky are the only players who have featured in every Premier League squad who have not started a game yet.

Danso, though, played the full 90 minutes against PSG, Doncaster and Bodo/Glimt. The Austria international should feature more in this busy period when Van de Ven or Romero are rested. Dragusin returned to first-team training in September and is an alternative when fully fit. Frank wanted to sign another senior centre-back in the summer to protect Van de Ven and Romero, who both missed large chunks of last season with muscle issues. Sharing the minutes around will hopefully reduce the strain on key players so they are only pushed to the limit in exceptional circumstances.

Before last month’s encounter with Wolves, Frank spoke about how they keep evolving the squad’s recovery routines. “We have a very good coaching group and good staff where we have a clear idea and process of how we want to do it, but we constantly discuss the small details,” he said.

“For example, we had some that played a lot of minutes on Wednesday (against Doncaster). They are on the second day (of training). We still want to get a little bit out of them. Also, some that didn’t play, they need to get a little bit more out. So how do we get that physical load bang on? Plus, we want to get all the details in. So that is the ongoing discussion constantly and there’s no one-size-fits-all kind of matchday minus one (approach). It’s a constant, small little bit of development.”

Hopefully, all of these decisions will pay off when Spurs face five games in 13 days, including trips to Monaco, Everton and Newcastle, and the players are not exhausted.

The other issue which Frank needs to address ahead of this challenging period is their chance creation from open play. Spurs have been over-reliant on Mohammed Kudus beating defenders in one-v-one situations before shooting or crossing the ball into the box.

Kudus has started nine of Tottenham’s 11 games and has forged a promising partnership with Porro on the right wing. Frank has not found a permanent solution for the opposite flank. Wilson Odobert, Brennan Johnson and Xavi Simons have been trialled on the left. Tel is another option.

Spurs might not be creating a lot of high-quality chances but they have scored 13 times, which puts them level with Chelsea and Liverpool. Only Arsenal (14) and Manchester City (15) have more goals. The concern is that Frank’s side are significantly overperforming their xG (which measures the quality of their chances) of 7.5.

Tottenham have historically overperformed in this regard because they possessed two elite finishers in Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, but they have both left.

The low-quality chances that Spurs are converting, including Bergvall’s header in the win over West Ham and Richarlison’s scissor kick against Burnley, suggest this is a lucky streak and not sustainable.

It was always going to take time for Frank to implement his ideas and for new signings to settle. Dominic Solanke, Tottenham’s club-record signing, has not started a single game due to an ankle injury which required surgery. Randal Kolo Muani, who is on a season-long loan from PSG, has been struggling with a dead leg.

There is a “good chance” Dejan Kulusevski will return from a knee injury before the end of 2025, but James Maddison will miss the majority of the season following an operation on his ACL. They are four quality and experienced attacking players who will give Spurs an extra dimension when they are available. It will be a massive boost if Kulusevski, Kolo Muani and Solanke are available for at least some of these games over the next two months.

Frank's ability to juggle the Premier League and the Champions League was one of the biggest questions hanging over him after making the step up from Brentford. All of the evidence suggests he is well prepared for the challenges ahead.

If Spurs reach December still in the top four and in a strong position to qualify for the Champions League knockout stages, maybe it will be time to readjust our expectations of what they could accomplish.