PSG vs. Tottenham live stream, where to watch: Does Thomas Frank’s Spurs have an identity?

Tottenham Hotspur, in some sense, are testing the limits of what it means to be a team in crisis. They sit just three points out of a top four spot in the Premier League and enter Matchday 5 of the UEFA Champions League in 10th place, everything seemingly in order for a team with their means and under new management in mid-November. Spend any amount of time watching Spurs, though, and that form does not meet the eye test at all – Thomas Frank’s side has racked up a series of drab performances, one of the few throughlines in a season full of disappointing inconsistencies.

Three months into the job, it is difficult to parse out what exactly Frank wants Spurs to look like on the pitch. Frank does have a default mode – he oftentimes anchors his midfield with the duo of Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur, preferring to almost exclusively play the ball forward through his fullbacks, usually some combination of Pedro Porro, Djed Spence and Destiny Udogie. The ex-Brentford manager has tinkered with the rest of the team in an attempt to take his team out of first gear, finding few fixes and instead muddying the tactical vision in the process.

Default mode or otherwise, the plans have not exactly panned out. Frank feels like an antidote to his predecessor Ange Postecoglou, under whom Spurs were remarkably porous in defense, his overreliance on Palhinha and Bentancur almost self-explanatory given the team’s needs and the new manager’s reputation. Yet, Frank’s side have just one clean sheet in their last eight Premier League matches, their ultra-conservative approach still leading them to concede four goals at Arsenal on Sunday.

How to watch Paris Saint-Germain vs. Tottenham Hotspur, odds

• Date: Wednesday, Nov. 26 | Time: 3 p.m. ET
• Location: Parc des Princes — Paris, France
• Live stream: Paramount+
• Odds: Paris Saint-Germain -290; Draw +420; Tottenham Hotspur +800
• Pick: PSG 2, Tottenham 0

On top of that, Frank seems to have sacrificed the one thing that was working under Postecoglou in the process – the team’s offense. Spurs may rank fourth in the Premier League for goals scored with 20 through 12 games but they have dramatically overperformed in that category. They rank 17th in the league in expected goals with 11.19, posting more than one expected goal in just three league games this season. The end product was especially paltry in recent defeats to Arsenal and Chelsea, posting 0.07 xG and 0.12 xG , respectively, in those matches.

Frank apologized to Spurs fans after Sunday’s loss in the North London Derby but he coupled that with an attempt to distance himself from some of the team’s problems, several of which were not of his creation.

“I think there’s definitely a lot to work on still,” Frank said on Sunday. “I think it’s fair to say that we are very disappointed and unhappy with the performance today. I don’t want to run away from that. I apologise to the fans. I think it’s also fair to say where we’re coming from. We finished 17th last year. And we’ve tried to build something, which today didn’t look like we tried to build something.”

He is not necessarily wrong to point out how poorly Spurs fared last season. Despite winning the UEFA Europa League and booking a spot in this season’s edition of the UEFA Champions League as a result, their injury-plagued season and Postecoglou’s approach doomed them to a finish one spot above the relegation zone. Years of poor squad-building has not helped, either – Frank’s approach to bypass midfield in building attacks was perhaps his only solution to inheriting a team with very few natural passers, especially with James Maddison on the sidelines after tearing his ACL in August. It may feel harsh to say but Spurs might have assembled a midtable squad over the years, something Frank seemed resigned to in his pre-match comments ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League clash at Paris Saint-Germain.

“Performances can always be a bit up and down,” Frank said on Tuesday. “In a 60-game season, there will be 10-12 perfect games, 30 or so [in the middle] and then the rest below that. You can be defeated [against Chelsea and Arsenal] but the others we were still competitive … we will keep working at it.”

That, though, almost absolves him of too much responsibility. Spurs’ defense has improved since Frank took charge, but that is faint praise for a team that conceded nearly two goals a game in Premier League play. The team’s attack is undoubtedly worse, going from an average of 1.6 xG to one of 0.9 xG per game in the league. Frank is missing Maddison and Dominic Solanke, who has essentially missed the whole campaign so far with an ankle injury, but his Brentford team last season also averaged 1.6 xG last season, much better than his Spurs team so far.

It makes the encouraging performance against PSG in the UEFA Super Cup feel like a very long time ago, though it may also act as a perfect source of inspiration as Frank once again goes back to the drawing board. They will not have the benefit of playing a PSG side that was fully in preseason mode but there was a dynamism to Spurs that felt like the best of Postecoglou’s and Frank’s tactical worlds. Wednesday’s trip to Paris may not be a make-or-break game for Frank, who still has the opportunity to turn things around. He will need to do so sooner rather than later, though, before he runs the risk of becoming a manager who was not ready for the demands of being amongst Europe’s elites.