Thomas Frank, Dead Man Walking, will shamble the corpse of his Tottenham Hotspur managerial career out in front of the Tottenham faithful for possibly one last time on Tuesday as Spurs host Dortmund in the Champions
League. This is a pretty important match for Spurs — while they’re in good shape in the table and are very likely to at least get out of the group stage and on to the playoff round of the competition, a win over Dortmund could be significant and give them a chance to finish top eight in the table and earn a bye in the competition, much like they did in the Europa League last season.
But much as Frank’s job prospects are in tatters, so is Tottenham’s squad. Frank will have a bare-bones roster available to him against a team that has lost once in the Bundesliga all season — Micky van de Ven is suspended after picking up a third yellow card in Spurs’ last Champions League game against Slavia Prague, and the team is basically the walking dead. Ben Davies just underwent surgery for a broken ankle and is out indefinitely. Rodrigo Bentancur is out for three months. Joao Palhinha’s status is unknown, but he missed the West Ham match due to injury. Mohammed Kudus and Richarlison are also out medium-to-long-term. New signing Conor Gallagher isn’t eligible until the next round, and AFCON winner Pape Matar Sarr was reportedly hospitalized after the final with an illness and is not available. At least Archie Gray, who picked up a knock vs. West Ham, and Xavi Simons, who also was carrying a slight knock, apparently trained today and Dom Solanke continues to work his way into fitness.
Which makes Frank’s decision about Mathys Tel and Dominic Solanke so bizarre. According to L’Equipe, Frank has made the decision to withdraw Tel from the Champions League squad… again… in favor of Solanke.
This is Olympic levels of fucking-a-guy-around, if you ask me. With Spurs still forced to register a smaller squad due to a lack of homegrown, association-trained players this season, Tel was left out of the squad, a decision that most thought was harsh but probably fair. Tel was then brought back INTO the squad ahead of the Slavia match as Dominic Solanke continued to recover from a long-term injury. Now, apparently, Frank has decided to reverse that decision, bringing Solanke back into the team and leaving Tel behind.
This is an unusual situation — Spurs are, according to Champions League rules, able to make a substitution in the CL squad for injuries without penalty, and are then able to change it back no later than two days before the match, which is apparently what they’ve done. But I confess to scratching my head on this one — Solanke is barely fit and hasn’t started a match since his return from injury. Meanwhile, Tel has been starting regularly, something that he has been demanding and even going as far as to have his agent try and force a loan so that he can get more playing time. Solanke is probably a better striker than Mathys Tel, but at least Tel is healthy and 100% fit. It feels especially cruel to be brought into the squad only to have that taken away
I get that everyone’s Mad at Frank™ right now, myself included, and are likely looking for any opportunity to stick a knife in. I’m leaving myself open to the possibility that this might be the correct decision for the squad ahead of an important match. But man, I just feel so bad for Mathys. This sucks for him and I’d probably be pissed off if this happened to me.
