Tottenham hierarchy face huge transfer test after two-word Thomas Frank message

Here are our Tottenham talking points after their drab goalless draw at Brentford kicked off their Premier League fixtures in 2026

Thomas Frank ended his press conference back at his old stamping ground with a trademark glare and just two words - "Very confident".

The question had been whether those above him at Tottenham Hotspur understood his sentiments after another Spurs snooze fest had prompted him to say: "I know we'll get to where we want to go. Maybe not exactly where everyone wanted to be right now, but we'll get there."

The Dane's homecoming to the Gtech Community Stadium did not go as he had no doubt dreamed. Even when he initially came out to applaud his former supporters before the game, he emerged into the dark, in the middle of Brentford's pre-match video montage of their players.

Frank started to walk out on to the pitch and clap but realised nobody could see him in the darkness. So he had to head back to the dugout and then repeated the process when the lights came back on. He received warm applause and that was as good as it got for the 52-year-old on the night.

The Tottenham supporters need to see some light in the darkness. There's precious little to actually write about the match itself as 12th-placed Spurs visited Brentford in ninth, because so little happened.

It was one of the worst adverts for Premier League football in 2026 you could possibly find. The ball spent most of the 90-plus minutes either in the air, booted long for attackers to chase in vain or simply being given away from one side to the other.

When Guglielmo Vicario received a yellow card for time-wasting with half an hour to go and the score at 0-0, it summed up the intentions of the night.

The only moments of note were a couple of blocked Archie Gray chances - the teenager forced into a number 10 role due to Spurs' injuries and absences - as well as back-to-back VAR moments involving Cristian Romero clumsily wiping out Igor Thiago at one end before Gray was brought down in the Brentford box in a sandwich of defenders moments later.

Keith Andrews believed Romero should have been sent off, while Frank said: "I think a 50/50 with Cristian Romero on Thiago and then there was the 50/50 penalty on Archie Gray. I think if that was given, it would not be overturned."

Neither goalkeeper had much to do and on a cold night in Brentford, most of the action took place off the pitch as the travelling 1,723 Spurs fans looked to keep themselves entertained.

Within two minutes of kick-off they sang "Johnson again, ole, ole, ole" in support of last season's top scorer who is on his way to Crystal Palace on Friday in a £35million deal. The fans sang it twice more on a night when Tottenham were desperate for a goal but had a bench containing two goalkeepers and very little to change the game.

When football.london asked Frank about the absence of Brennan Johnson and his inability to really change the drab game with attacking options from a depleted bench, he simply said: "No, that's true. Yeah, that's true."

football.london reported on Thursday that Johnson had been informed on New Year's Eve by both Frank and joint sporting director Fabio Paratici that the club was going in a different direction and he was surplus to requirements as they looked to start selling players when their value was high.

There is a certain irony of course in Paratici, heavily reported to want to leave the club for a more powerful role as head of football at Fiorentina, telling anyone that they had to depart Spurs.

The decision to sell Johnson, the man who won it in Bilbao, has not gone down particularly well in a dressing room in which he was popular, particularly at a time when goals are a rare commodity for this Tottenham team.

The man Frank chose to replace Johnson - Mohammed Kudus - has bundles of talent but has scored just three goals this season from 1,812 minutes of football. Johnson has four from half that amount of pitch time.

This was another match in which Kudus lacked directness to his play, running into tangles of Brentford legs without looking up for options to pass to, if there were any.

Replacing Johnson's 25 goal involvements from last season is going to be some task for Frank but he claimed all would be fine.

"I think it's fair to say that Lucas and Xavi are hopefully soon back with the team, they are attacking options," he said. "So that's some element. Hopefully Solanke at one stage also will come back and help the team and then that should be fine.

"And then as I said, we are in the market and we are looking for everything we can to see if we can improve the squad. But it's a difficult January window and we need to be calm and take the right decisions."

Johnson will represent Spurs' third-biggest sale in the past decade, although they are still getting a fee of around £15million less than the £47.5million figure they agreed with Nottingham Forest for the 24-year-old just two-and-a-half years ago, once the reported 10 per cent sell-on clause is taken off.

As with most clubs, Tottenham may well have only paid a certain amount of that figure so far, but it's still about whether it's the right deal at the right time.

Johnson should do well at Palace although he will have had some doubts about what comes next there if Oliver Glasner does depart in the summer as many expect.

For Tottenham, the key is what they do in this transfer window. It's widely known and constantly said that January is the toughest window, with clubs reluctant to sell, but Spurs cannot come out of this period in a weaker state than they were before it.

football.london reported at the weekend that Tottenham are looking to fix the entire left-hand side of their team across the next two windows, with a left winger a priority next month as well as potentially adding a midfielder and a centre-back, if one departs.

Frank finally admitted that he hopes Dominic Solanke will return this month as he "is out there on the pitch, and part of training with the group". Perhaps it was merely an oversight, but it was noticeable that the Dane did not mention Dejan Kulusevski in his list of returning attacking players.

The Swede will provide another option down the right with Kudus when he returns as well as being able to play centrally as a 10.

Spurs will look to spend in the transfer market but their nerve and backing of Frank will be testing by the growing apathy towards him from the fanbase, which spilled over into displeasure on New Year's Day.

The travelling fans hoping for a 'new year, new Tottenham', soon realised this match was going to bring more of the turgid football of recent weeks, particularly with a midfield of the defensive pairing of Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur with teenager Archie Gray desperately trying to make something happen out of his normal position.

There's of course the irony that had Johnson been available then Kudus could have moved inside - the Ghanaian enjoys playing as a 10 - and both could have been fitted into the team. It's been tried once before but never really given a chance to settle.

On Thursday night, the Tottenham fans began to make it clear how they felt about this current iteration of their team.

They began singing "boring, boring Tottenham" before bursting out into chants for numerous nostalgic figures from the past in Dele Alli, former manager Martin Jol, Ledley King, Mousa Dembele, Aaron Lennon and even former centre-back Eric Dier got a chorus among others.

The message was clear and they again sang "boring, boring Tottenham" even louder as the game reached its final stages.

Then came Frank's difficult moment with them after the final whistle. The Spurs players had gone over to the travelling faithful without getting too close, only for the Dane to then come over and walk past them, followed by a Sky cameraman, applauding the away support.

The reaction was instantaneous as the bulk of those 1,700 away fans booed the Tottenham head coach loudly. After a moment and a stern look, he turned and walked back across the same pitch where he was mostly adored for nine years.

It was a tough moment for Frank and further evidence that the Tottenham fans just have not taken to him yet, if they will at all. He remains steadfast in his belief that the club must stick to a long-term plan for once and fix the mess created by constantly chopping and changing.

Johnson himself is a victim of that, a big money signing already deemed surplus to requirements because of the biennial change of manager and style at Spurs.

So there's logic in the long-term message from Frank but the Dane must do more to connect with the supporters to ensure the powers-that-be at Tottenham can remain confident that they are spending money based on the right man's decisions this month.

That connection must come first on the pitch, for like his predecessor Ange Postecoglou, Frank will not be allowed excuses for bad football because of a lack of available players. The Australian was initially given that leeway by the club last season until he decided to prioritise one competition over another and if you'll pardon the expression, dared and did.

Frank also needs to connect more with his messages to the fans. He's following a man who was able to keep a modicum of support at all times, even after daft moments like cupping his ears at the travelling supporters, because of his ability to communicate.

Frank is a likeable character but when the cameras are on, he has a more direct, Scandinavian way of speaking, giving the reality without any sugar-coating and combined with a contrasting and somewhat enforced way of speaking about long-term injuries, it's not what Tottenham fans want to hear, especially if they're not seeing signs of progress.

football.london asked Frank what he made of being booed by the fans at the end of the game.

"I think they seemed like they were not too satisfied and it's fair when we don't hit that top performance overall, but I think it's double-sided because what we need to understand is the acknowledgement of the defensive side of the game, which we've done excellent today against a team that just scored three against Liverpool, three against Man Utd, so on and so on," he said.

"But of course the offensive part needs to be better. There's no two ways about that."

He added: "Of course we need to play, it's not that we don't want to play offensive or attacking football. I just think when we're not, how can you say, on the top of the game we would like to be, we work very, very hard on that, but while you work hard on that you can't, if you struggle scoring goals, let's say that, or create enough chances, you can't open up too much because then you need to score too many goals. So it's a fine balance.

"You'd prefer everyone is happy and we're winning 3-0. I think the understanding of where we are right now, as a team, and as a club, that's the transparent view of it.

"We have to play with Archie as a 10 - or I decided to do that - we did a little bit different at the end of the game. That's just step by step, we do those things. I'm very confident we will make it fluent and better and scoring enough goals. But with the amount of games and limited training times and the right offensive players available, that's part of it, it's no problem."

He was asked whether he believes the supporters need to be more understanding.

"That question is very difficult for me to answer, going off a few boos after the game, and as I say, I'm not really reading anything on social media, or articles or all that," he said. "I watch the team. I'm very aware that we are not where I want us to be. Very aware.

"This league is so tight. Just look at the results today and two days ago. So tight, so even. Small margins that change games. We put a lot of foundation work into those two performances and competitiveness you need to have in the team. Then we need to add the next layers. It's not that we're not working on it. It is what it is. I know we'll get to where we want to go. Maybe not exactly where everyone wanted to be right now. But we'll get there."

Then came the question about whether he was confident the people above him understood that as well.

With those two words "very confident" he summed up what is believed to be the mood inside the club.

The powers-that-be will have to trust the process they took after sacking Postecoglou. Spurs used data modelling to identify 50 coaches that would suit what they were looking for and drew up a list of 10 criteria for prospective candidates, including a track record of playing attractive football, developing young players and good communication skills with the media as just three of them.

The supporters will point out that other than finally using Archie Gray in the midfield, none of those three criteria have been realised as of yet under Frank.

He was chosen from a shortlist of four candidates and Tottenham will have to back their own judgement despite the disgruntlement of the supporters otherwise the whole process cannot be trusted.

There is noise outside the club but less so inside it. However, that noise outside is going to continue to get louder if the attacking edge to performances does not improve rapidly.

Sunday brings promoted Sunderland to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, punching above their weight despite a whole host of missing players. If the away fans turn then you can only imagine the noise to come if Spurs do not look to create and score goals against the Black Cats.

Frank's men remain top of the away form table at this point while lying 17th in the home one. 2026 began with the Dane rightly praising his defence for another clean sheet, but there was nothing happening beyond them.

The fans need something to hold on to, something tangible to show why this latest version of Tottenham Hotspur should be the one to build upon. It needs to come soon for the noise can only be shut out for so long.