The moment when the Thomas Frank project first looked doomed hit like the chiming of a bell; a clear, crystallising sound that revealed the cold hard reality of how the future would unfurl.
It was late August, just weeks into Frank’s tenure and just days after a brilliant 2-0 victory at the Etihad Stadium had continued Tottenham's 100% start to the season.
The full-time whistle blew. Bournemouth had won 1-0, Spurs had dominated the ball but mustered just five shots on goal, and the silence that hung over the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was punctured by a chorus of boos.
In that instance Frank’s tenure came to an end before it had even started; in that instance all the talk of Frank stabilising the club with a rational and pragmatic approach dissolved to uncover the deeper truth we all should have known.
There are many reason why Frank hasn’t worked out and a detailed analysis of the minutiae would point to Tottenham’s injury crisis and to Frank’s inexperience outside the supportive bubble of Brentford, where wildly different expectations were far more conducive to his quiet management style and low-status tactical philosophy.
But the macro-analysis is more important. Tottenham don’t do Frank types; they cannot handle a manager in this mould.
Nuno Espirito Santo – who also beat Man City early on, who also started well – lasted less than three months. Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho both got longer but their methods were quickly despised.
Go back 25 years and the only managers Spurs fans took to are Martin Jol, Harry Redknapp, and Mauricio Pochettino. Briefly, very briefly, they also fell in love with Ange Postecoglou and in his case the Europa League triumph in May means absence will probably make the heart grow fonder.
This is not because Tottenham supporters are entitled but because their entire history is built upon identifying with attacking football, an idea so fundamental to their sense of self it is pumped out of the speakers, with an accompanying light show, before every home game.
The fans expect daring attacking football and they are told to expect daring attacking football.
The messaging at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is not inconsequential here. Their billion-pound new home is itself a totem, a signal of intent. It tells the world, and their own supporters, that Tottenham is one of the biggest clubs in Europe and that it demands a style of football to match.
Three weeks ago the latest Deloitte Football Money League was published and despite a 3% drop Tottenham remain ninth in the world on revenue generated. Their stadium helps, but what really stands out is the club’s commercial revenue of £258 million, not far short of Manchester United’s £313 million.
In fact, Spurs’ commercial revenue is £32 million higher than Arsenal’s (£225 million) while their matchday revenue (£107 million) is only marginally less than their rivals’ (£133 million).
What separates Tottenham from Arsenal, or even Man Utd, is not financial. It is transfer spend, scouting network, wage budget. In other words: intent.
That intent is set by the boardroom, by Daniel Levy’s replacement Vinai Venkatesham. It is characterised and projected to the fan base most clearly in their choice of manager.
From that perspective Frank was always doomed to fail, was always on the precipice of that first chorus of boos whenever safety-first football came up against the inevitable road block.
There are obvious lessons to be learnt from this latest mistake - and so many others in the final decade of Levy.
Antonio Conte was a star name to go alongside Spurs’ new financial status but Levy refused to loosen the purse strings, so the inherent negativity of Conte’s football quickly came to embody the club’s existential crisis.
Jose Mourino, Nuno, Frank: these were simply poor choices that misunderstood the club’s place in the pyramid and its supporters’ expectations.
What to avoid should be obvious, then. From almost the very beginning of the Frank era it was clear Levy had made an error swinging from Ange-ball to its opposite.
Nevertheless there is no easy option for where to go next.
Robeto de Zerbi has the wild attacking football of Postecoglou but with the Premier League experience to suggest he won’t capitulate to the same degree - maybe.
Pochettino is tempting but comes with the age-old risk of trying to recapture glory days long gone.
Robbie Keane is the maverick choice, the fans’ favourite who has won league titles in his first two management roles at Maccabi Tel-Aviv and and Ferencváros, although the jump from Israel and Hungary to England would be astronomical.
Ultimately what holds Spurs back is what held Pochettino back at the end of the last decade. It comes down to money and the club’s willingness to spend enough of it to break out of their purgatorial space between the super-clubs and the rest.
It is money that makes Xavi Alonso unavailable. It is money that will prevent the next Tottenham manager from being able to replicate what Mikel Arteta did for Arsenal.
The next one will be the first post-Levy appointment, setting the tone of a new era for the club. It has to be an attacking head coach, and it has to be accompanied by a serious change to the transfer and wage budgets.
“When you look at their expenditure and particularly their wage structure, they’re not a big club,” Postecoglou said this week on the Stick to Football podcast. Those comments have already been taken out of context, but what he says is right.
Tottenham have the revenue. They simply don’t match it with expenditure. “When you walk into Tottenham what you see everywhere is ‘to dare is to do’,” Postecoglou said in the same interview.
“And yet their actions are almost the antithesis of that.”
Until that changes, the short cycles, the irritable crowd turning quickly on the new head coach, will never go away.
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