Ian Wright suggested that some of Tottenham’s biggest stars are unwilling to give new interim manager Igor Tudor a chance, after Micky Van de Ven appeared to blank him during the north London derby.
Appointed following the overdue sacking of Thomas Frank earlier this month, Tudor arrived with the challenging brief of ensuring that Spurs avoid relegation.
The Europa League champions currently sit 16th and only four points away from 18th-placed West Ham – and Tudor’s arrival in the capital was made no easier by his first match in charge being the north London derby.
As Spurs fell 4-1 to Arsenal at home, Tudor was spotted apparently giving vocal instructions to Van de Ven from the sidelines, only for the defender to fail to acknowledge him.
For Wright, the fact that the players were not eager to engage with their new head coach was a troubling sign.
‘Against Arsenal I saw Igor Tudor try to speak to Van de Ven, he blanked him, totally blanked him,’ Wright said to his co-hosts on The Overlap’s Stick To Football podcast.
Igor Tudor appeared to be ignored by Micky Van de Ven just days into his tenure as Tottenham interim head coach
‘That says to me they have checked out already.’
Gary Neville thought that Wright’s verdict was a ‘harsh’ one, while Roy Keane argued that the players ‘did that with’ Frank, but the Arsenal legend was in no mood to back down.
‘This guy is new, he wants him to come up and Van de Ven just looks at him and stays there,’ Wright continued. ‘You think to yourself, that doesn’t look good. That does not look good.’
For his part, Tudor denied conflict between himself and Van de Ven on Thursday afternoon, sharing that he had been addressing the whole team.
‘If you watch carefully, I don’t speak to him (in that moment),’ Tudor said in his pre-Premier League weekend press conference. ‘Afterwards, I said to him to come closer, and he comes closer.
‘We didn’t talk about it because nothing happened. He’s a fantastic professional and a fantastic guy, he would not do something like (ignoring me).’
Belgium head coach Roberto Martinez stressed that whatever Tudor can do to ensure Spurs do not spend next season in the Championship, his first order of business should be ‘accepting where they are’ at this stage in the campaign.
‘When I was at Wigan you almost prepared for that last third of the season because that is your opportunity,’ Martinez said. ‘The last third for us was that we are going to get out of trouble.
‘The problem is when you are going into the last third hoping you are not going to get dragged down into a relegation battle because your club wasn’t ready for that. This is where it becomes very, very dangerous.
The stop-gap manager has a challenging task attempting to keep Spurs from the drop – and began his reign with a dismal north London derby
‘What happens now is that you should forget about these general terms that “we shouldn’t get dragged down”, what does this mean to a player (looking to hear) “do I need to run more, less”.
‘It is basic language (you use to a player) about everything you can control, “you have to do 12km, six sprints into the box and run to the near post”. Everything has to be so measurable. It is about winning the next game.’
Spurs’ torrid winter has been only exacerbated by a number of injuries to key players leaving their squad painfully short.
But Martinez was keen to warn that Spurs cannot wait for stars to return and simply expect fortunes to change.
‘I think Spurs will get one or two players back from injury, you win a game and then you have got too much (of a gap),’ he added.
‘The problem is there are no easy games in the Premier League. As a player at Spurs you might think there are easy games we can win, no – there are no easy games. It is about reducing that to, it is the next game and you have an opportunity to get points rather than if you don’t win and you are out.
‘The moment that the club see it as “wow, if we don’t win…” – the mindset is so negative and it drags you down. We have seen teams that are “too good to go down” go down because they weren’t prepared for that final third of the season.’
Spurs will stay in London for their next Premier League test, travelling to Craven Cottage to play Fulham on Sunday.
