They are the only side in the top 10 never to have won the Champions League/European Cup.
They are also the only club in the top 10 not to have won their domestic title in the 21st century (1961 was the last time they were crowned champions of the English top flight).
Europa League success last season was their first major trophy win for 17 years.
This June will mark the seventh anniversary of their sole Champions League final appearance.
Since then, the hierarchy have provided a masterclass in how not to run a football club.
As a consequence, the current incarnation of the team have looked like genuine relegation contenders.
The statistics are a damning indictment of Thomas Frank’s short-lived reign.
Spurs have not won a Premier League match in 2026.
As The Athletic’s Colin Millar pointed out on X, in the last 14 months, they have won more matches in Europe than domestically — 12 from 21 games versus 11 out of 48.
Per Opta, since the start of last season, Wolves are the only Premier League team to have suffered more defeats.
Yet it is hard not to feel a degree of sympathy for Frank.
Part of the reason for the Danish manager’s earlier success is that Brentford are a well-run club with a clear identity in how they want to play.
Tottenham are the opposite.
In the Premier League era, Mauricio Pochettino was comfortably their most successful manager.
It’s no coincidence that he was also their longest-serving coach in modern times, having enjoyed five and a half years at the helm.
You have to go back to Keith Burkinshaw, who lasted from 1976 to 1984, to find a lengthier managerial reign at Spurs.
Frank, who was sacked eight months into a three-year contract and whose removal from Brentford reportedly cost the club £10 million, is one of a long list of stints that were as brief as they were disappointing.
And the Danish manager’s ultimate failure was the consequence of years of mismanagement.
Perhaps the club’s gravest sin was their (at best) half-hearted backing of Pochettino seven years ago.
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The Argentine coach had produced minor miracles during his tenure.
The Champions League runners-up spot is the most obvious example, but guiding the team to 86 points in the 2016-17 Premier League season (still only good enough for second place behind Antonio Conte’s rampant Chelsea) was arguably a more impressive achievement.
The season before, they also looked like genuine title contenders before tapering off towards the end, as Leicester City instead claimed a shock win.
Pochettino’s success was all the more impressive when you consider many of the key players (Harry Kane, Eric Dier, Dele Alli, Danny Rose) were either academy products or bought for minimal fees.
Still, it was clear that the squad were coming towards the end of its cycle. Despite the Champions League heroics, the team failed to match the heights of previous seasons domestically. Their fourth-place finish and overall points tally of 71 was their weakest performance since the Argentine’s maiden season in charge.
The likes of Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen, Rose and even 23-year-old Alli were starting to look past their prime. Kyle Walker, their best full-back, had been sold to Premier League rivals Man City.
And Pochettino regularly complained to the media about the board’s reluctance to back him around this period, with Tottenham required to be somewhat financially prudent amid the move into their lavish new stadium (incidentally, Lloris suggested the ambitious move may have prevented them from winning the Premier League title).
This issue was addressed to an extent, as they spent over £100 million in the summer following their memorable Champions League run, but every big-money signing (Tanguy Ndombele, Ryan Sessegnon, Giovani Lo Celso, and Steven Bergwijn) proved to be an unequivocal failure.
Rather than implementing the squad overhaul that was needed, Spurs ultimately went with the easier solution, sacking Pochettino five months after their Champions League final appearance.
Back row, left to right, Tottenham Hotspur's Toby Alderweireld, Moussa Sissoko, Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen and Dele Alli. Front row, left to right, Tottenham Hotspur's Danny Rose, Harry Winks, Harry Kane, Kieran Trippier, Christian Eriksen and Son Heung-min pose for a team photo before the UEFA Champions League final. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Their decisions since then, particularly in relation to managerial appointments, have exacerbated the situation.
Part of the reason why Pochettino was and continues to be beloved by most Spurs fans is down to the progressive brand of football he insisted on.
Yet the criticism was that they never won a trophy under the Argentine.
Then-chairman Daniel Levy ostensibly had this in mind when he decided to hire Jose Mourinho next, a manager regarded by some at the time as a “serial winner”.
Yet the appointment was a bad fit. Mourinho’s tactics were the polar opposite of Pochettino’s — a situation that, to a degree, foreshadowed the switch from Postecoglou to Frank — and the expected success never materialised.
The Portuguese coach lasted just 17 months, and it was the first time the experienced manager departed a club without winning a trophy since 2002. Although he will point out that his dismissal occurred just days before they were due to contest the EFL Cup final with Man City.
Two more managers with a preference for defensive-minded football followed – Nuno Espírito Santo and Antonio Conte.
Nuno’s reign was even more fleeting than Frank’s — the Portuguese coach was in charge for less than four months and departed after a chastening 3-0 loss to Man United, a fifth defeat in seven games that left the North Londoners ninth in the table.
Conte did admittedly revive their fortunes to an extent. He guided them to a fourth-place finish in his first season, securing Champions League football for the first time since the Pochettino era.
Yet the Italian was never a particularly popular figure in North London. His brand of football was more akin to Mourinho’s and Nuno’s than Pochettino’s, and the ex-Juventus boss frequently gave the impression at press conferences that managing a side incapable of mounting a serious title challenge was beneath him.
A remarkable press conference in which he heavily criticised the club’s board left his position untenable in the latter half of the 2022-23 season, and the combustible Italian departed despite the club being in a relatively healthy fourth place in the table.
Postecoglou arrived the following season and was easily the club’s most progressive and popular manager since Pochettino.
Despite a promising start and an improved fifth-place finish in the Australian coach’s debut campaign, it was another case of diminishing returns.
Their Europa League triumph last season failed to mask domestic flaws that led to a 17th-place finish, their worst in the top flight since relegation in the 1976-77 campaign.
The subsequent appointment of Frank felt like a disproportionate overcorrection to the Postecoglou era.
The thinking seemed to be that Tottenham needed to become solid and hard to beat again.
Yet the overtly conservative approach under Frank has not significantly improved results — the North Londoners were at least entertaining to watch for much of last season, whereas that is patently no longer the case.
They were also fortunate that Leicester City, the best-performing relegated team in the 2024-25 campaign, finished on 25 points. Spurs’ 38-point season would have left them in serious bother in previous seasons.
And this year, the managerless side are on 29 points — five above the drop zone.
The hierarchy’s next call is potentially their most significant decision since the sacking of Pochettino.
The temptation would be to re-hire the much-loved coach, but that is unlikely to happen until the possible conclusion of his World Cup adventure with the USA this summer.
But given the gravity of the situation and the ostensible relegation fight on their hands, can Spurs risk entrusting an interim manager with ensuring their survival?
Whoever gets the job faces an unenviable task.
Spurs’ recruitment has been consistently poor in recent times.
The policy seems to be acquiring promising-but-raw youngsters (Archie Grey, Lucas Bergvall, Wilson Odobert), alongside players who have had some success at smaller clubs but then struggled to make the step up (Brennan Johnson, Yves Bissouma, Richarlison, João Palhinha).
The club’s much-criticised, unusually low wages-to-turnover ratio is often perceived as one of the primary problems and part of the reason why they perennially struggle to attract top footballers.
Their injury record is also a big issue. For three seasons on the trot, they have endured various crises. Postecoglou’s frenetic style of football was blamed initially, but the situation has not changed since his exit — they had just three senior outfield players on the bench during Tuesday’s defeat to Newcastle (Mathys Tel, Randal Kolo Muani and Palhinha). Desperate times have meant that Bissouma, initially ostracised from the first team owing to poor form and off-field behaviour, has been brought in from the cold.
Despite all the managerial upheaval over the past seven years, for a long time, Spurs at least remained top-four contenders. It was partially due to having a couple of solid performers, combined with the individual brilliance of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min.
The void left by the departure of both these iconic figures should not be underestimated.
In addition to their excellence on the pitch, they were leaders first and foremost, with both players being former captains of the club.
Tottenham Hotspur defender Cristian Romero is sent off during the recent game with Man United. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
By contrast, the skipper who has replaced them, Cristian Romero, has not always led by example and is prone to Conte-esque implosions.
The World Cup winner’s unreliability was epitomised by a needless red card (his sixth in five seasons with Spurs) in the weekend defeat by Man United.
But Romero is far from the only player to have let Frank down during the Dane’s ill-fated reign.
While Spurs are a club who believe they should always be challenging for the top four, the reality is that, of their current squad, Micky van de Ven is arguably the only player who could conceivably make the starting XI for a team of Man City or Arsenal’s calibre.
That issue, coupled with their lack of identity, has culminated in this increasingly dire predicament.
Even the current incarnation of Man United look like a well-run club by comparison.
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Tottenham's problems go far deeper than Thomas Frank
Updated at 20.30
MANCHESTER UNITED HAVE for years been the starkest example of a big Premier League club badly underachieving, but Tottenham run them a close second.
According to the latest figures compiled by Forbes, Spurs are the ninth most valuable team in the world.
They are the only side in the top 10 never to have won the Champions League/European Cup.
They are also the only club in the top 10 not to have won their domestic title in the 21st century (1961 was the last time they were crowned champions of the English top flight).
Europa League success last season was their first major trophy win for 17 years.
This June will mark the seventh anniversary of their sole Champions League final appearance.
Since then, the hierarchy have provided a masterclass in how not to run a football club.
As a consequence, the current incarnation of the team have looked like genuine relegation contenders.
The statistics are a damning indictment of Thomas Frank’s short-lived reign.
Spurs have not won a Premier League match in 2026.
As The Athletic’s Colin Millar pointed out on X, in the last 14 months, they have won more matches in Europe than domestically — 12 from 21 games versus 11 out of 48.
Per Opta, since the start of last season, Wolves are the only Premier League team to have suffered more defeats.
Yet it is hard not to feel a degree of sympathy for Frank.
Part of the reason for the Danish manager’s earlier success is that Brentford are a well-run club with a clear identity in how they want to play.
Tottenham are the opposite.
In the Premier League era, Mauricio Pochettino was comfortably their most successful manager.
It’s no coincidence that he was also their longest-serving coach in modern times, having enjoyed five and a half years at the helm.
You have to go back to Keith Burkinshaw, who lasted from 1976 to 1984, to find a lengthier managerial reign at Spurs.
Frank, who was sacked eight months into a three-year contract and whose removal from Brentford reportedly cost the club £10 million, is one of a long list of stints that were as brief as they were disappointing.
And the Danish manager’s ultimate failure was the consequence of years of mismanagement.
Perhaps the club’s gravest sin was their (at best) half-hearted backing of Pochettino seven years ago.
The Argentine coach had produced minor miracles during his tenure.
The Champions League runners-up spot is the most obvious example, but guiding the team to 86 points in the 2016-17 Premier League season (still only good enough for second place behind Antonio Conte’s rampant Chelsea) was arguably a more impressive achievement.
The season before, they also looked like genuine title contenders before tapering off towards the end, as Leicester City instead claimed a shock win.
Pochettino’s success was all the more impressive when you consider many of the key players (Harry Kane, Eric Dier, Dele Alli, Danny Rose) were either academy products or bought for minimal fees.
Still, it was clear that the squad were coming towards the end of its cycle. Despite the Champions League heroics, the team failed to match the heights of previous seasons domestically. Their fourth-place finish and overall points tally of 71 was their weakest performance since the Argentine’s maiden season in charge.
The likes of Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen, Rose and even 23-year-old Alli were starting to look past their prime. Kyle Walker, their best full-back, had been sold to Premier League rivals Man City.
And Pochettino regularly complained to the media about the board’s reluctance to back him around this period, with Tottenham required to be somewhat financially prudent amid the move into their lavish new stadium (incidentally, Lloris suggested the ambitious move may have prevented them from winning the Premier League title).
This issue was addressed to an extent, as they spent over £100 million in the summer following their memorable Champions League run, but every big-money signing (Tanguy Ndombele, Ryan Sessegnon, Giovani Lo Celso, and Steven Bergwijn) proved to be an unequivocal failure.
Rather than implementing the squad overhaul that was needed, Spurs ultimately went with the easier solution, sacking Pochettino five months after their Champions League final appearance.
Their decisions since then, particularly in relation to managerial appointments, have exacerbated the situation.
Part of the reason why Pochettino was and continues to be beloved by most Spurs fans is down to the progressive brand of football he insisted on.
Yet the criticism was that they never won a trophy under the Argentine.
Then-chairman Daniel Levy ostensibly had this in mind when he decided to hire Jose Mourinho next, a manager regarded by some at the time as a “serial winner”.
Yet the appointment was a bad fit. Mourinho’s tactics were the polar opposite of Pochettino’s — a situation that, to a degree, foreshadowed the switch from Postecoglou to Frank — and the expected success never materialised.
The Portuguese coach lasted just 17 months, and it was the first time the experienced manager departed a club without winning a trophy since 2002. Although he will point out that his dismissal occurred just days before they were due to contest the EFL Cup final with Man City.
Two more managers with a preference for defensive-minded football followed – Nuno Espírito Santo and Antonio Conte.
Nuno’s reign was even more fleeting than Frank’s — the Portuguese coach was in charge for less than four months and departed after a chastening 3-0 loss to Man United, a fifth defeat in seven games that left the North Londoners ninth in the table.
Conte did admittedly revive their fortunes to an extent. He guided them to a fourth-place finish in his first season, securing Champions League football for the first time since the Pochettino era.
Yet the Italian was never a particularly popular figure in North London. His brand of football was more akin to Mourinho’s and Nuno’s than Pochettino’s, and the ex-Juventus boss frequently gave the impression at press conferences that managing a side incapable of mounting a serious title challenge was beneath him.
A remarkable press conference in which he heavily criticised the club’s board left his position untenable in the latter half of the 2022-23 season, and the combustible Italian departed despite the club being in a relatively healthy fourth place in the table.
Postecoglou arrived the following season and was easily the club’s most progressive and popular manager since Pochettino.
Despite a promising start and an improved fifth-place finish in the Australian coach’s debut campaign, it was another case of diminishing returns.
Their Europa League triumph last season failed to mask domestic flaws that led to a 17th-place finish, their worst in the top flight since relegation in the 1976-77 campaign.
The subsequent appointment of Frank felt like a disproportionate overcorrection to the Postecoglou era.
The thinking seemed to be that Tottenham needed to become solid and hard to beat again.
Yet the overtly conservative approach under Frank has not significantly improved results — the North Londoners were at least entertaining to watch for much of last season, whereas that is patently no longer the case.
They were also fortunate that Leicester City, the best-performing relegated team in the 2024-25 campaign, finished on 25 points. Spurs’ 38-point season would have left them in serious bother in previous seasons.
And this year, the managerless side are on 29 points — five above the drop zone.
The hierarchy’s next call is potentially their most significant decision since the sacking of Pochettino.
The temptation would be to re-hire the much-loved coach, but that is unlikely to happen until the possible conclusion of his World Cup adventure with the USA this summer.
But given the gravity of the situation and the ostensible relegation fight on their hands, can Spurs risk entrusting an interim manager with ensuring their survival?
Whoever gets the job faces an unenviable task.
Spurs’ recruitment has been consistently poor in recent times.
The policy seems to be acquiring promising-but-raw youngsters (Archie Grey, Lucas Bergvall, Wilson Odobert), alongside players who have had some success at smaller clubs but then struggled to make the step up (Brennan Johnson, Yves Bissouma, Richarlison, João Palhinha).
The club’s much-criticised, unusually low wages-to-turnover ratio is often perceived as one of the primary problems and part of the reason why they perennially struggle to attract top footballers.
Their injury record is also a big issue. For three seasons on the trot, they have endured various crises. Postecoglou’s frenetic style of football was blamed initially, but the situation has not changed since his exit — they had just three senior outfield players on the bench during Tuesday’s defeat to Newcastle (Mathys Tel, Randal Kolo Muani and Palhinha). Desperate times have meant that Bissouma, initially ostracised from the first team owing to poor form and off-field behaviour, has been brought in from the cold.
Despite all the managerial upheaval over the past seven years, for a long time, Spurs at least remained top-four contenders. It was partially due to having a couple of solid performers, combined with the individual brilliance of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min.
The void left by the departure of both these iconic figures should not be underestimated.
In addition to their excellence on the pitch, they were leaders first and foremost, with both players being former captains of the club.
By contrast, the skipper who has replaced them, Cristian Romero, has not always led by example and is prone to Conte-esque implosions.
The World Cup winner’s unreliability was epitomised by a needless red card (his sixth in five seasons with Spurs) in the weekend defeat by Man United.
But Romero is far from the only player to have let Frank down during the Dane’s ill-fated reign.
While Spurs are a club who believe they should always be challenging for the top four, the reality is that, of their current squad, Micky van de Ven is arguably the only player who could conceivably make the starting XI for a team of Man City or Arsenal’s calibre.
That issue, coupled with their lack of identity, has culminated in this increasingly dire predicament.
Even the current incarnation of Man United look like a well-run club by comparison.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
deep dive EPL Mauricio Pochettino mess Premier League Soccer talking point Tottenham Hotspur Thomas Frank