Frank avoids half-time Spurs sack based on five good minutes in ‘storm’ of awfulness against Villa | OneFootball

There was a point when the idea that Thomas Frank was “getting sacked in the morning” felt like an understatement. When Morgan Rogers doubled Aston Villa’s lead in north London it seemed like the history of Martin Jol’s alleged half-time axing in 2007 was about to be repeated.

“It was a strange night because it was my final game in charge but it was also a special night,” Jol said then, despite his side falling to a 2-1 home defeat to Getafe. “I had a great connection with the Tottenham fans and that will always be there.

“The fans were unbelievable the way they were chanting my name throughout the game, and I am a little embarrassed because they knew before me that I was gone,” he added.

While this FA Cup third-round tie produced the same scoreline and result, the outlook for the latest beleaguered Spurs manager could not have been more different.

This was no “special night” for Frank or the supporters, who have never shared a particularly “great connection”.

And the “embarrassment” will be in how the only chanting of Frank’s name was when the home fans joined in to taunt him about his impending unemployment.

There was a distinct second-half improvement but it would have been difficult to lower the bar set during the first, when a passive and languid Spurs were played through at will.

Villa scored from two moves constructed of sheer speed and beauty. One cut through the heart of Spurs, while the other was a sharp and remorseless stab in the side.

Ezri Konsa, Youri Tielemans and Donyell Malen carved them open with passes simple yet glorious in execution, before Emiliano Buendia’s emphatic finish into the roof of Guglielmo Vicario’s net.

Spurs were dominated from them until the second, when Buendia, Malen and Morgan Rogers combined for the England international to find and exploit an inexplicable amount of space in an area occupied by nine home players.

That was when Frank’s position felt untenable – and it was worth questioning whether a revival of sorts, ultimately still in defeat, in the subsequent 45 minutes really makes this any more worth persisting with?

Wilson Odobert scored after fine work from Randal Kolo Muani. Xavi Simons, the leader of the impotent charge, had a goal disallowed for offside. A few Spurs attacks were snared by that high line as they ventured further forward and the visitors sat back.

But Spurs still lost. Frank still failed to conjure anything positive from those first 45 minutes, and not nearly enough in the second. Villa made more changes to their starting line-up and still beat them away, which is admittedly not the feat it sounds at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

There was a fight, an energy, a floor of both individual and team performance that absolutely was not present in the first half and frankly has not been for much of the season. Does that make those steps forward after the break better or worse? Does Frank believe that rally represents the building of fences or windmills?

Villa still held on in that “storm” of his, having the last six shots of a game they led from the 22nd minute onwards, with one of them cleared off the line.

Spurs did not muster a single effort after Frank’s three unenforced substitutions. Their time in the ascendancy, which will keep the Dane in his post for at least another week, lasted five minutes in which they had more than half the shots they managed all game (seven of 13) and scored.

It is a burst which will at least force an answer to a seemingly impossible question posed in the most miserable way imaginable next Saturday: can Dr. Tottenham really cure West Ham?