Spurs’ failure led to ‘one of the worst contracts in PL history’

Tottenham Hotspur are not in a crisis situation, but there is a sense that Thomas Frank is the man who urgently needs to produce an upturn in results and performances.

Sunday’s 3-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest, a “disjointed” performance by the Danish manager himself, did little to calm the flames from fans fed up with the team’s lack of initiative and fluency.

The usual culprits this season, such as Pedro Polo and Guglielmo Vicario, are at fault once again, and the goalkeeper in particular is starting to look like a man on borrowed time.

Vicario pretends to have quit his job.

When Tottenham signed Italian goalkeeper Vicario from Empoli for £17m in 2023, it looked like Ange Postecoglou had made a smart signing at the start of his reign.

But Vicario has had his share of ups and downs, and has been responsible for some frustrating moments this season.

The 29-year-old has improved his Premier League save percentage from 64% last season to 70.4% this season, according to FBref, but has been error-prone and unconvincing.

But Vicario, who has committed eight errors since making his debut in England’s top flight, is not a long-term solution for a team looking for stability. Football Insider understands that the Lilywhites are preparing to sign a replacement at the end of the campaign.

However, Vicario is blanketed by a leaky backline, lacking synergy and strength against the division’s attacking line flow.

There are one or two bigger issues with Frank’s management, one of which is that he is not suited to lead the line consistently over the next few years.

Spurs’ bigger problem than Vicario

If there’s ever a player who can easily feel hot or cold, Richarlison is that player. The Brazilian forward has scored a few goals recently, but his overall play still has a lot of room for improvement, and his performance against Forest gave him a burst of positivity.

This season, the Brazilian forward has scored seven goals and provided two assists in 25 games in all competitions.

He has enjoyed some outstanding moments, including a wonderful goal against Arsenal and a powerful late goal against Manchester United, but even those peaks were clouded by circumstances. Spurs were beaten by their rivals and the Red Devils equalized through Richarlison with a last-gasp equalizer.

Franck needs a more refined and dignified centre-forward. With Dominic Solanke’s injury record down to N17 and Richarlison, 28, in particular entering the penultimate year of his £90,000-a-week contract, reinforcements could be the way to go.

Richarlison needed to put in a great performance at the City Ground after being criticized by writer Simon Yemane for his “unacceptable” absence from last week’s Champions League.

To say he struggled would be to make deceptive comments about his work rate and focus versus the well-coached side of Sean Dyche. Football.london criticized his hold-up play and movement, giving him a match rating of 3/10 and writing: “It’s like playing with a wall up front.”

There simply isn’t enough of it on the show, and there hasn’t been since the first time he put on a lily-white shirt.

The differences between Richarlison and former teammate Harry Kane are clear. When he made his £60m move from Everton, no one expected him to emulate the club’s greatest ever striker, but the hint is in this sentence. Richarlison’s transfer fee was a hefty £60m, and he was neither good enough nor consistent enough. In the words of Gabriel Agbonlahor, he is “one of the worst signings in the history of the Premier League”.

Tottenham need to solve that. Poor strategy over the past few years has led the club downhill, winning the Europa League title in the process, but it’s clear that without these player upgrades coming into effect in 2026, cobwebs will gather on the silverware.