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Off the pitch, Tottenham Hotspur have been one of Europe’s best when it comes to business strategy in recent years.

The move to a new stadium in 2019 might have come with a £1.2bn build cost and lumbered them with some £850m-plus worth of debt, but i, as well as the ability to generate huge sums from hosting the likes of the NFL each season and some of the biggest acts in music and sport.

They for the long term and . They have the lowest wages to revenue ratio in the Premier League and are in a strong position to withstand any decline in broadcast revenues that may come over the next decade, with clubs knowing that they have to reduce their reliance on that particular revenue pillar in light of some challenging times ahead on that front as traditional broadcasters battle with dwindling subscribers and upstart streamers.

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All well and good. But one area where the club have been profligate and fallen well below many of their rivals is that of getting strategy right when it comes to the man at the helm of football operations, the manager/head coach.

Ange Postecoglou may have won the Europa League last month and, with it, booked Champions League football for next season for Spurs, but the dismal Premier League performance of last season, where the club finished 17th having lost 22 games, meant that the .

It was a decision that had been expected, even with the trophy success, but it requires more money to be shelled out by for what will be perceived as a failed appointment, with Postecoglou set to receive a settlement around £4m.

That sum follows the £4m sum that was paid out to Antonio Conte, Postecoglou’s predecessor, in 2023, with major payouts received by Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho and Nuno Espirito Santo before him. There have been plenty of expensive mistakes made by chairman Daniel Levy and the decision makers at the club that have eaten into the Spurs bottom line since Pochettino’s departure in 2019.

The exit of Postecoglou before the end of his contract takes Spurs’ spending on sacking managers to just over £50m in the last six years. That is the price for failure, and also the price for a lack of strategy and continuity.

It makes sense, then, that Spurs have looked towards Thomas Frank at Brentford, a manager who has been at the helm of the Bees since 2018, lasting through the tenures of Pochettino, Mourinho, Nuno, Conte and Postecoglou at Spurs.

Brentford, like teams like Brighton & Hove Albion, have been lauded for their football strategy, and Frank has been a big part of that. The Bees finding the right man for the strategy as opposed to jumping from one kind of manager to another has meant that they have avoided taking a major bath financially when it comes to severance payments. The same could be said for the likes of Liverpool, who haven’t had to pay to sack a manager since Brendan Rodgers in 2016. That comes with knowing the identity of the team and its structure, not finding a quick route to success.

Maybe Frank provides that, if, indeed, he does end up being the man for the club long term. But they will need to learn lessons from their £50m headache, and from a manager who allowed his current employers to avoid such financial pain.