FootBiz newsletter #142: Two more sackings, but will it be easy to hire this summer?

At some point, even if performances are good, coaches do need to get actual results.

If the performances are bad as well then obviously get ready to pack your bags.

Two more exits in the Premier League this week, as Thomas Frank and Sean Dyche both ended up jobless after just months with their current team. Both leave their sides in a relegation battle after qualifying for European competition last season.

Frank marching Spurs towards the Championship has been much the greater surprise, despite them only finishing one place above the drop zone last season. The Dane was seen as a solid hire in the summer, some order after the chaotic Ange Postecoglou era, and had done well at Brentford. But in the same way that coaches and executives who have left Brighton have struggled to achieve the same uplift they did on the South Coast, Frank (and also Yoann Wissa) have struggled to replicate the success they had in west London at new clubs.

When you consider how well first-time head coach Keith Andrews has done with virtually the same squad as Frank, if not weaker, it’s more evidence of the importance of having a good structure where pieces can be interchangeable — but also the ability to identify that in other clubs and/or recognise when you don’t have it yet.

Rather than the unified, intelligent and long-term approach to squad-building that Brentford had used to supply Frank with talent, he inherited a team at Tottenham that had lost its two best players of the modern era, been assembled by various administrations and didn’t have a clear identity. The only thing long-term about the squad was the contracts given to players bought for wildly varying idelogues Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte, Nuno Espirito Santo and Ange Postecoglou (as well as Frank himself) providing some highly-paid square pegs for Spurs’ numerous round holes.

Where Tottenham go next is something of a mystery. Adding to the patchwork feel of the club’s sporting business in recent seasons, they have a new CEO who will lead the hiring process with the under-pressure Johan Lange. According to reports, another sporting director will soon arrive to sit alongside Lange atop the sporting side of the organisation, though presumably not in time to make the coaching hire.

Speaking of which, Is there enough short-term fear about relegation to make a real hire now or do they try and limp to the end of the season with an interim? Ryan Mason is available and knows the club, even if he failed badly in his first tilt at being a number one. And yet, the lack of direction is so apparent that something as small as Michael Carrick’s current unbeaten run with Man United may influence the club’s thinking on their path.

Wait, if Carrick keeps doing well and Spurs opt to wait until summer then does their old midfielder get a shot at a return to North London? Just spitballing here, but that’s kind of the point isn’t it? Spurs’ lack of identity is such that you really feel like the next manager could be just about anyone.

Looking further ahead, one of the things we keep hearing about the summer is how it will be much easier to find a good coach with the World Cup coming up, but how would that actually work?

On the eve of the 2018 World Cup, it emerged that Spain head coach Julen Lopetegui had agreed a deal to take over at Real Madrid after the tournament. The outrage in Spain was such that he lost his job the day before the tournament’s first game (and his spell at the Bernabeu didn’t last much longer) but the perception that it would be easy to arrange a hire for after the World Cup doesn’t appear to match reality.

If Spurs were to reach a deal with Mauricio Pochettino or Julian Nagelsmann for after the tournament, do you announce it? How does that go down in Germany or at the US Soccer Federation? How can a coach that has spent years focused on one singular goal, a quadrennial football tournament, not let the future planning creep into their mind?

Is it a distraction? Who knows. Would it have the perception of a distraction and be blamed for any underperformance? You bet it would.

There is the route where you wait until after the tournament, of course, but the realities of modern football mean that a top club not hiring a coach until mid-July is just not feasible. The fans would melt down, sure, but more significantly the preparation for every aspect of the coming season would be adversely affected. Add into this the uncertainty at ownership level on the white and blue side of north London and you’ve already got enough for a third season in a row of Spurs Crisis TV.

With all that in mind, it just seems like going into the summer with the plan to take a World Cup head coach is not realistic, and those names will instead be thrown into the pot when the first wave of firings come around September/October time.

So while Spurs’ plans remain a huge mystery, Nottingham Forest’s appear clear. They will be hiring former Wolves boss Vitor Pereira to try and steer them clear of relegation, a fate Wolves are already resigned to but which they dragged Forest closer to with the draw that ended Dyche’s reign.

Forest will become the first Premier League club ever to have four different permanent head coaches in a season, a testament to Evangelos Marinakis’ recklessness and impatience and a magnifying glass for Edu’s rush to push Nuno Espirito Santo out of the club. Nuno, of course, has perked up West Ham’s fortunes and the Londoners are just three points behind Forest now. It would be poetic, wouldn’t it?

One coach who is seemingly off the market for both clubs is Thomas Tuchel, who the FA decided to extend — before he has ever taken charge of a tournament game — until 2028.

In a move that does have echoes of the ill-fated pre-tournament extension of Fabio Capello in 2010, Tuchel has taken his name off the club market by committing early to two more years of international football and the German will now, barring a complete disaster this summer, lead England into Euro 2028 on home soil as locked-in favourites to win the tournament.

The FA has certainty at executive level and now has a little more than it did in the dugout.

At Forest the executive level seems secure if the dugout has never been less so, while at Tottenham only Vinai Venkatesham truly feels safe… and that’s assuming the club doesn’t change hands.

At some point, though, all of the above are going to need results.

Table of Contents

• French football’s spiral reaches new low?

• Azteca “will be ready” for World Cup

• Championship to expand playoffs?

• England, Argentina, Netherlands choose KC as base

• Real Madrid and UEFA pact ends Super League

• Ratcliffe fall-out may not be over yet

• Shevchenko seeks Infantino talks on Russia

• IFR wades into Wednesday takeover

• Snoop set for Swansea bow

• CVC’s GSG ready for buying spree

• Wasserman face further exits in Epstein row

An intriguing footnote to Tottenham’s decision to sack Thomas Frank this week came in Brentford’s 2024/25 accounts, noting the club paid £6.7million in compensation to their Premier League rivals to secure his release last summer.

A note on Brentford’s other operating income in their accounts, which shows a record turnover of £173m, refers to a settlement agreement “in relation to guaranteed compensation receivable in relation to the departure of on-field staff”. Whilst Frank is not named, The Guardian reported that the figure related to Tottenham’s compensation payment for the head coach and his coaching staff Justin Cochrane, Chris Haslam and Joe Newton. Frank’s release was thought to have taken up £5m of that.

Coincidentally, Brentford’s accounts were published a matter of minutes before Frank’s dismissal on Wednesday morning was confirmed by Tottenham, a decision which will cost them millions more in severance payments. Under the terms of his Tottenham contract Frank will continue receiving his £8m-a-year salary for the next 12 months until he takes a new job. It’s time to book a nice holiday, Thomas.

Brentford’s decision to release Frank and replace him with an internal appointment, set-piece coach Keith Andrews, is looking like a shrewd piece of business from owner Matthew Benham. 

The club’s accounts showed a £27m player trading profit, but that does not include fees received last summer for Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa and Christian Nørgaard which took place in the following accounting period, so despite recording an operating loss of £40m they may become one of the few Premier League clubs that makes a profit next year.

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