The cups are gone; the league is nearly dead. In some twisted irony, once again a (maybe lame duck?) Tottenham Hotspur manager’s fate may lie in Europe. The difference this time around is that Spurs have no real chance at lifting a trophy, meaning there really may be very little Thomas Frank can actually do to save his long-term prospects at the club. However, crashing out of the Champions League is one way to surely accelerate his demise.
Tottenham is highly likely to advance from the League Phase despite the respectable two names left on the fixture list, and there is even an outside shot at getting a bye into the Round of 16. Doing that requires wins over a pair of German sides, starting with Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday. Both teams are flawed but have done well enough in this competition so far, leading to an interesting battle in North London.
UCL League Phase MW7
Date: Tuesday, January 20
Time: 3:00 pm ET, 8:00 pm UK
Location: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London
TV: Paramount+ (US), TNT Sports 1 (UK)
Table: Spurs (t-10th, 11 pts), BVB (t-10th, 11 pts)
At one point, Spurs saw Dortmund three times in four seasons, making them one of the most frequent opponents amongst Europe’s top clubs. The Europa League Round of 16 defeat in 2015/16 was wiped away with two wins that helped Tottenham top its 2017/18 Champions League group. A memorable 4-0 win on aggregate in the following season’s Round of 16 featured domination at Wembley, then a heroic defense effort at Signal Iduna Park was validated by Harry Kane right out of halftime.
Two Things to Watch
Glory, glory nights
Tottenham’s home form in the league continues to sink lower, sitting 17th in points after the latest debacle over the weekend. Not so is the case in the Champions League, however, with nine points taken through three League Phase contests thus far with an aggregate scoreline of 8-0. The quality of competition could be questioned, but the problems that arise domestically do not seem to be the case on European nights.
That reality will be tested on Tuesday. Dortmund will be the best team yet to visit Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and while a 1-4 loss at the Etihad was unimpressive, the other two road matches featured four goals at Copenhagen and four more at Juventus. No team has scored more than Dortmund in the League Phase, and level on points with Spurs, they will be equally motivated to try to jump into the top eight.
Domestically, Dortmund are second in the table and second in goal difference. This is a quality side (12th per Opta) and one that figures to provide a difficult test for Frank. There remains the thought that Spurs play to their competition, and a home fixture means something much different in Europe than the Premier League, but poor effort will be punished by this squad.
Gridlock
Despite both team’s form in this competition and the ability to level up their play based on the occasion, there is a world where this contest ends up fairly uneventful. Even with the addition of Conor Gallagher, the Spurs midfield leans defensive, and Micky van de Ven’s yellow card suspension is likely to make Frank even less ambitious in his both his squad selection and tactics than usual.
Meanwhile, the Dortmund defense should feel optimistic about slowing down whoever ends up in the Tottenham attack, with the back three finding plenty of success behind the industrious midfield. It will be interesting to see how directly the visitors look to attack themselves, especially without the speedy van de Ven around to chase down through balls. With this in mind, expect Spurs to play it safer.
The only reason I could see this match opening up is because of all of the pressure on Frank. While a draw here and a win against Frankfurt would be a reasonable situation on paper, how much patience does the club really have for the struggling manager? Three points would definitely provide a boost — and would probably buy him a little more time, which might just be the biggest motivating factor, despite how long he claims a turnaround takes.
