Thomas Frank at Spurs. What does it mean for FPL managers?
Who will score goals, who will provide assists, and will there be clean sheets?
Alright.
The first community article of the 2025/2026 pre-season.
At this stage, we can assess some transfers. Sure. However, it is still too early to properly evaluate most of the teams as a whole, as there will be:
more players arriving
more players departing
price reveals, which are key to everything
We still lack a great deal of crucial information.
Evaluating a new coach is a great way to fill the gap until the game relaunches (which should be about two weeks from now).
Plus, Thomas Frank’s arrival at Spurs is one of the biggest talking points of the summer. Not only overall, but also for FPL managers. There are many potential picks throughout the season.
Moreover, the opening fixtures look quite good. Again, we can’t asses it fully just yet, but you get the idea:
You are here to learn what Frank’s arrival will mean for Spurs, the Premier League, and your FPL teams. However, understanding B requires first understanding A.
Incredible data: I’ve never seen anything like that
Let’s start with a brief overview of what happened with Brentford last season so that you can get a sense of Frank’s work.
I firmly believe that this section will reveal many truly fascinating numbers and insights to you.
There are several articles reporting that Brentford achieved 10th place in the Premier League despite having only the 14th highest team value in the Premier League.
They are not wrong, and to some extent, it is a testament to how well the club was run.
However, did you know there’s a better way to highlight their effectiveness? It’s players’ wages that are closely tied to a team’s performance.
Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski highlight in their book, Soccernomics, that the wage bill can largely explain a team’s final position in the Premier League table. It makes sense—the better players you can attract to the team, the better performances you can enjoy. And with greater success comes better-paid players. You simply need to pay them more for them to stay and be happy.
According to various sources, Brentford were estimated to pay somewhere between £40 and £45 million to their players last season. This means that The Bees had the second-lowest wage bill in the league, with only Ipswich Town spending less (reportedly £33 million).
Yet, despite limited resources, they managed to finish in 10th place.
And it wasn’t an accident.
Their xPoints numbers were… 10th best. Expected points is a metric that evaluates the quality of chances a team both created and conceded (classic xG/xGC), then calculates the likelihood of a team winning, drawing, or losing a match, assigning expected point values.
They ranked 8th in xG created, with a very similar volume and quality of shooting opportunities to those of Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Tottenham, or Brighton.
They ranked 14th in xG conceded, which sounds much worse, but they were only one expected goal behind United and Brighton, so it’s much closer to the middle of the pack.
Then there’s the data I have never seen from a mid-table club.
In a nutshell, Brentford’s plan in the final third can be summed up as something like “make each chance as good as possible.” Meaning?
Their average shot distance was the lowest in the league, 14.9 meters. Those who are not believers in data analytics will tell you that xG is a useless stat and that football is played on grass.
As a professional football analyst, I am fully aware that xG has its limitations and must be considered within the proper context, which I always emphasise in my content. However, it simply reflects what is happening on the pitch.
The closer to the opponent’s goal you shoot, the higher the chance of scoring you have, the higher the xG that shot has. It’s a bit simplified, but you get the idea.
In Brentford’s case, their shots were both close to the goal and dangerous—their 0.131 xG per shot was the highest in the Premier League.
Amazingly, they could PREVENT their opponent from shooting from good positions or launching dangerous attacks, such as counters or successful counter-pressing.
Their 0.085 xG per shot conceded was the lowest in the league. I repeat, I have never seen a mid-table team perform the best in both of these metrics. It is a testament to Frank having a plan he could execute, even with conditions far from being comparable to those of their rivals, who fared similarly in terms of the final league position.
Quite impressive.