In a recent episode of Stick to Football shared on their official X handle, Gary Neville and the crew discussed Thomas Frank’s early struggles at Tottenham and the recent booing of goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, Softfootball reports.
Ian Wright explained that Thomas Frank was known for his honesty and lively personality. He mentioned that while he was at Brentford, he could say things freely without causing drama but it was different in a bigger club like Tottenham because even small comments could be misunderstood.
At one point, he even had to apologize to Tottenham fans after the team lost heavily to Arsenal in a North London Derby.
Jamie Carragher agreed and added that managers praised for honesty at smaller clubs can be criticised for the same honesty once they join a big team. According to him,
But that’s an interesting point that we talk about moving from a whatever club, whatever size you want to call Brentford but when you make that jump to one of the big boys, things that you get lauded for which is Oh, he’s really honest, isn’t he? Aren’t his interviews refreshing, he’s exactly the same at a club like that and we’ll criticize it. So there is that sort of, I think saying something like that, the reason is, it won’t go down well because Tottenham don’t want their manager to feel like oh my God, Chelsea, Man United, you got to feel like that’s where I belong. You’re the Tottenham Manager, you should be getting interviews or that don’t feel like, this is like Oh, you know, unbelievable but it will have been where he’s come from but when the Tottenham manager is saying that right now they won’t want to hear that.
The crew went on to react to Thomas Frank’s quote concerning Tottenham fans booing Guglielmo Vicario during the Tottenham Vs Fulham Premier League match which ended with a 2-1 loss for them. Gary Neville read out the quote which said,
I didn’t like that our fans boded him straight after and a few times after that, they can’t be true Tottenham fans, because everyone supports each other, when you’re on the pitch, you do everything we can to perform, I’m fine with them booing after the match though, no problem but not during that is unacceptable.
Jill strongly disagreed with the act of booing a player during a game as it shows lack of understanding of football.
Wright agreed with her saying that fans may have the right to express themselves because they paid to be at the màtch but booing a player only makes things worse for the player and the club.
Watch the episode below:
This episode just shows that players thrive better when they have the loyal support of their fans and mocking or booing them openly especially during a performance will only slow them down.
