The painful 4-1 derby defeat against Arsenal at the weekend has raised many uncomfortable questions. Spurs have taken a point from their last three Premier League games against Chelsea, Manchester United and their north London rivals. The common thread linking all of those performances is how bad they looked in attack.
Frank’s team remained vulnerable for 83 minutes against United, until Mathis Tell’s deflected strike ended the match in a 2–2 draw. They also recorded the two lowest expected goals (xG) totals of any team in the Premier League this season, losing to Chelsea (0.10) and Arsenal (0.07).
New head coach Frank has been very cautious with his tactical approach during his first four months in charge. The 5-4-1 system they used at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday was designed to frustrate Arsenal. He was so concerned about stopping the league leaders that he put the onus on the centre-backs, who had no one to mark as Mikel Merino acted as a false nine, and paid little attention to how Spurs could exploit the absence of Victor Giocares, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel for the home side.
Tottenham have dropped to ninth in the table after just one win in five Premier League games (and three of those losses). To regain momentum it is important they beat Fulham and Brentford in their next two home top-flight fixtures. Frank’s relationship with the supporters is deteriorating, and he needs a win in front of them to regain some confidence.
One issue that could define the next few months revolves around who should start next. Frank needs to decide whether to put all his trust in Randal Kolo Muani, Tell or Richarlison until club-record signing Dominic Solanke recovers from the ankle injury that has kept him out of England internationals since August.
Kolo Muani was signed on loan from Wednesday’s Champions League opponents Paris Saint-Germain for the remainder of the season on the summer transfer window deadline of 1 September. He has a point to prove, along with Spurs teammates
You could make a strong case that Spurs should prioritize the development of Richarlison and 20-year-old Tell rather than playing Kolo Muani as they have long-term contracts with the club, but the situation is complicated.
One reason why Tottenham hired Frank was his excellent record of improving talent at his former club Brentford, whose business model is to scout the market for young, undervalued players and provide them with regular minutes before selling them on for big profits. For example, they bought teenager Brian Mbeumo for around £5 million in August 2019, when they were still in the second-tier Championship. The now Cameroon international scored 70 goals in 242 appearances for the west Londoners, then moved to Manchester United this summer in a deal worth up to £71million.
It is more difficult to develop youth in first-team football when you are expected to compete for trophies, as is the case with Spurs.
Frank needs to balance giving game time to the team’s exciting prospects – including Tell, Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray – with fielding the strongest possible starting XI to win games. The counterargument is that Mauricio Pochettino inherited a young team when he was appointed in 2013, but still led Spurs to fifth place and a League Cup final in his first full season.
Kolo Muani, who turns 27 next Friday, has played for four different clubs in the last three years.
He moved from Nantes, France to Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer of 2022 but only spent one full season in Germany. He scored 16 goals in 34 Bundesliga matches, which prompted PSG to make their move. However, the European champions’ head coach Luis Enrique now prefers Goncalo Ramos or Ousmane Dembele in the central striking role. After spending 18 months in his hometown, Kolo Muani spent the second half of last season on loan to Juventus. He scored eight goals in 16 league games for the Italian team, but they turned down the opportunity to sign him permanently and instead completed deals for Lois Openda and Jonathan David.
Kolo Muani needs this loan to succeed. It may be too harsh to say that his career has waned over the years, but he needs a permanent home to fulfill his potential.
France head coach Didier Deschamps has a number of quality attacking options to choose from, and Kolo Muani needs to consistently perform at a high level to have any chance of playing at next year’s World Cup. It was unfortunate that he had to withdraw from the final two World Cup qualifiers against Ukraine and Azerbaijan this month after being left out of Deschamps’ squad in both the September and October windows after suffering a broken jaw in a collision with Harry Maguire during a Manchester United game.
Randal Kolo Muani wore a protective device against Arsenal because of his broken jaw (Ben Stansell/Getty Images)
Richarlison is a strange footballer to describe. The Brazil international is not an elite goalscorer, but is capable of scoring great goals – his scissor-kick and long-range lob against Arsenal in the 3–0 defeat of Burnley in August being the two most recent examples.
Frank has helped many strikers improve, but Richarlison doesn’t match any of the profiles of players he has worked with before. The 28-year-old doesn’t have the pace of Ollie Watkins, the strength of Ivan Toney or the ball-carrying ability of Yoanne Vissa. When he’s fully fit and confident, Richarlison is a good penalty-area threat, but as things stand, this Spurs team doesn’t create enough chances. His inventive header against United to put Tottenham 2-1 ahead and his effort in the 2-2 draw with Brighton in September showed what he can do when the ball is in the box, but he needs to improve his hold-up game.
Kolo Muani started the final three league games before the November international break, suggesting he is Frank’s preferred option. He has scored goals while playing regularly at Nantes, Frankfurt and Juventus, but has yet to open his account in nine appearances for Spurs (meanwhile, Richarlison has scored five of 19 club goals in all competitions this season), although he has only recorded 215 minutes of playing time in the Premier League. Gray (72) and Solanke (31) are the only members of the first team to have fewer appearances than him.
“Of course he wants to perform,” Frank said when asked at his pre-PSG press conference whether Kolo Muani had had a disappointing start to life in north London. “Every player wants to perform and be at his best, there’s no doubt about that. He was very happy to join Tottenham and perform for us, and we were very happy to have him. Then he got a dead leg which took longer (to recover) than we thought. Then he broke his jaw. So it’s definitely stop-start. I’m confident we’ll see more good things from him.
“I like his link-up play. I think he’s very good at it. His ability to run in behind and his ability to go one-on-one. He’s very good in those situations. That’s probably a bit of a difference (to Tottenham’s other forward options). And then he’s very good in the box.”
Kolo Muani was excellent in the 4-0 Champions League win against FC Copenhagen three weeks ago. He presents a threat beyond opposing defenses and shows signs of a promising relationship with Odobert and Simmons. He missed two great chances to score in the first half that night but then provided a brilliant assist for Odobert.
“We know Kolo is a quality player,” Odobert said, also speaking before the PSG game. “His staying with us can only be beneficial for us.”
Frank could start both strikers together again at the Parc des Princes this evening, but that looks unlikely. It may seem like an odd time to move Richarlison out after scoring in consecutive games for a player who has yet to find the net this season, but it seems like the smartest choice to make Spurs more efficient in attack.
Starting Kolo Muani won’t completely solve their chance-creation problems, but he provides the team with more variety and unpredictability than Richarlison.
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