The Athletic FC

Hello and welcome to the Athletic FC tactics podcast.

I'm Michael Bailey.

This week we're talking tactical trends from low blocks

to headed clearances and the return of long-range screamers. We've got you covered with the

thoughts of Michael Cox. Hi Michael. Liam Tharm. Hey Michael. And Mark Carey. Hi Michael. Hello to you all.

Before we get into the trends, as we record this on a Thursday afternoon, Tottenham Hotspur are searching for their next manager after sacking Thomas Frank.

Could it be Sean Deisch, who has himself just been sacked by Nottingham Forest, imagine.

We like to give ourselves a pat on the back on this podcast, so we should mention that we did a whole show on the difficulties of making the step up from a smaller club to a big club.

Go and check that out.

Michael, you've also written on the topic this week.

What were your major learnings from the Thomas Frank era?

To be honest, we did a podcast in December, I think, about the struggle of managers

who kind of succeed through underdog football with maybe smaller clubs in the Premier League

and their struggles to step up and do it with the big club. To be perfectly honest, we did that

podcast partly because I was writing about Thomas Frank that week expecting that he was going to be

dismissed in December. So that article only came out on Wednesday. And yeah, I think that underlines the fact. It just never looked like working, really, from the early days. It just felt there was a disconnect between the players and the manager. I think particularly between the fans and the manager as well. And some of the performances, it's not just the results. It's that the fact, a lot of the time, I think,

particularly in home games, Tottenham was just not competed at all. The home defeat to Chelsea,

in particular, I thought the first half against Newcastle the other day was pretty bad. But I

thought the most damning defeat was the home defeat to Bournemouth, where Tottenham for long

periods just didn't get out of their own half. I think the XG terms, it's kind of bottom five matches all season.

And this was against a side who have Amundja, who I think was conceivably another option for Tottenham

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