Igor Tudor has hinted Tottenham will stick with a back-three for Sunday’s trip to Liverpool, with “beautiful guy” Archie Gray in line to play centre-back.
A feature of Tudor’s disastrous four-match tenure at Spurs has been his tendency to put square pegs in round holes, with midfielder Joao Palhinha and right-back Pedro Porro used out of position in the Croatian’s favoured 3-4-2-1 formation.
Palhinha played centre-back in Tudor’s debut 4-1 loss to Arsenal and Porro was used there for last week’s worrying home defeat to Crystal Palace. Even though Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Palhinha are absent at Anfield, the 47-year-old looks likely to keep faith with a three-man defence.
Asked about Gray during a tense press conference on Friday, when Tudor urged Spurs not to be “victims” and to choose whether to “cry or fight” their way out of a club-record six-match losing streak, the caretaker boss hinted he would play in another new position.
Gray has played right-wing-back, left-back and central midfield during Tudor’s terrible reign, but could get the nod at centre-back along with Kevin Danso and Radu Dragusin for a daunting fixture at Liverpool.
“That’s the problem. He needs to every game change the position,” Tudor said about Gray.
“(Sunday) again. Four games here, four positions for Archie Gray. He’s an amazing player, but that (constant change) means that something’s wrong.
“Beautiful guy, beautiful player. I didn’t know him before so much, so from inside, he has my big respect.”
Gray has been required at full-back due to selection issues in that position, but Destiny Udogie is close to a return after a five-week lay-off.
“Destiny’s almost back,” Tudor said. “Yeah, for sure (against Nottingham Forest next Sunday).”
There are big doubts over whether Tudor will still be in charge for Spurs’ home fixture with Forest on 22 March.
The shambolic nature of Tuesday’s 5-2 thrashing at Atletico Madrid – where back-up goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky was withdrawn after 17 minutes – has heightened scrutiny on Tudor’s position, especially given his lack of public compassion towards Kinsky.
Quizzed on if he remained the right man for Tottenham, Tudor pushed back: “It’s not a topic that I’m thinking about.”
The experienced coach has earned relative success in previous short-term roles, with his harsh appraisal able to act as a catalyst for a turnaround in fortunes, but his methods at Spurs have instead appeared to decrease morale.
“It’s not criticism, I give advice. It’s not about criticising players. We are together. It’s not that I say to you, ‘you are not good, you need to do this,’ it’s not about that,” Tudor added.
“It’s about you making them understand that this is advice for you to become a better player and when you become a better player, we become a better team.
“It’s about accepting this, which is something not easy because it’s easy to stay in your comfort zone. When you stay in your comfort zone, you don’t change, so it’s a lot of time about that.”
