Another break in play and more big decisions loom over Tottenham. Stick or twist on Igor Tudor and if they twist then what next?
Time is on their side. Spurs will not play for almost three weeks and any undue haste to declare a sudden change would be crass.
Tudor was informed of the death of his father Mario straight after Sunday’s defeat at home against Nottingham Forest. The awful news jolts football back into perspective and there is no need to intrude upon his grief.
Still, the Spurs players would not be surprised if they were to return to find another new boss, just as they did when granted five days off in February, after a defeat by Newcastle, during which time Thomas Frank was sacked.
Chief executive Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange will make a recommendation to the owners, the Lewis family, if they decide to draw a line under the Tudor era and change again. Less than six weeks have passed since Frank’s dismissal and to dispense with Tudor would be tantamount to admitting they got it wrong. Again. For the second time in a year.
The Croatian has been in charge for seven games, only five in the Premier League and yet Spurs have taken one point from 15 available and gone out of the Champions League in that time.
Igor Tudor has been in charge of Spurs for five Premier League games, winning just one point
If West Ham beat bottom club Wolverhampton Wanderers at home on Friday 10 April, Spurs will be in the relegation zone by the time they kick off in their next fixture, at Sunderland on Sunday 12th
If West Ham beat bottom club Wolverhampton Wanderers at home on Friday 10 April, Spurs will be in the relegation zone by the time they kick off in their next fixture, at Sunderland on Sunday 12th. Nottingham Forest will kick off at home against Aston Villa as Spurs kick off on Wearside.
It all promises to be tense and dramatic. Leeds will be the last to play in the next round of fixtures, on Monday 13th at Manchester United. They could also kick off in the bottom three if all the results of their relegation rivals go against them. The following week, West Ham will play last of the four, on a Monday night at Crystal Palace. Unless something remarkable is in store, three of this quartet are going to survive with one joining Wolves and Burnley in next season’s Championship.
There are seven to play and having taken only one point from their last seven – compared with West Ham (nine points from the last seven) and Forest and Leeds (seven points) – Spurs are on course for relegation unless they buck the trend.
Tudor said before the Forest defeat that he expected it would go to the wire and was looking forward to injured players, including James Maddison, Mohamed Kudus and Rodrigo Bentancur, coming back to aid the rescue mission.
There is serious doubt once again, however, that he will cling on. Set against what would be a tacit admission of failure by the Spurs executives is that to continue unchecked is to keep sliding towards relegation and that is certainly worse.
In the Premier League, Spurs are winless in 13 games. Under Tudor, they have one point from five. In those five games, they have conceded 13 and scored four. Leeds and Forest have clawed back the goal difference, although West Ham’s is still well adrift.
Like others before him, Tudor has realised any attempt to assemble the Spurs players into a system to play with attacking intent leaves them vulnerable at the back. Frank’s attempts to address this by playing deep, protecting the defensive unit, or guarding against opponents, were criticised. This dawned quickly on Tudor, who said the problems were much worse than he imagined and would not be able to play the way he wanted.
The trouble is that nothing he has done in search of a solution has worked. He has run them hard, knocked about a few egos and bristled with passive aggression. He has chopped from a back three to a back four and back again, moved from one up front to three to two.
Xavi Simons was brilliant against Atletico but was back on the bench for the Forest game. He must have been incredibly frustrated
Among Tudor’s tactical tweaks of desperation have been to deploy Radu Dragusin at right back and Micky van de Ven (above) at left back
Among his tactical tweaks of desperation have been to deploy Radu Dragusin at right back and Micky van de Ven at left back, and right back Pedro Porro on the right side of a back three and on the right wing.
Back-up goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky was brought in to play for the first time for six months only to be replaced within 17 minutes by Guglielmo Vicario who was, we now know, resting a hernia problem which now requires surgery and could bring Kinsky back into the firing line.
As with Frank, there are factors of mitigation. It is the imbalanced squad due to recruitment mistakes and there is the pile-up of injuries, but the Croatian was hired as a troubleshooter. He came in to halt the slide and has made no impression other than perhaps to heighten disarray, and this is a worrying sign for Spurs.
Expensive recruits Xavi Simons and Conor Gallagher have been readily discarded. Simons must be incredibly frustrated. After a sparkling performance and two goals in the second leg of the Atletico tie, he was back among the subs against Forest.
Tim Sherwood, a former Spurs midfielder and manager, appeared on Sky Sports on Monday insisting he knows what is needed to keep them up. ‘I don’t think it’s too late,’ he said. ‘I would keep them in the Premier League. Someone with common sense keeps them up. You have the quality to be able to do it. You have to get them feeling good again.’
Stepping up from a role as the club’s technical director, Sherwood did an excellent job during his five months at the helm after Andre Villas-Boas was sacked in December 2013. Forging a coaching team with Les Ferdinand and Chris Ramsey, they primed the team perfectly for Mauricio Pochettino who arrived from Southampton in the summer and brought emerging young players most notably Harry Kane through.
Harry Redknapp and Glenn Hoddle, two more former Spurs managers, have both gone on the record promising to answer the call if it came, and the old boys’ reunion idea has grown in popularity among supporters during Tudor’s struggles, along with names such as Ryan Mason and Chris Hughton.
Hoddle has not managed for 20 years and had a heart attack in 2018 and yet is still only 68 and an astute pundit on TNT Sport, highly regarded for his tactical appreciation of the game.
Glenn Hoddle, a former Spurs manager, is on the record promising to answer the call if it came
Chief executive Vinai Venkatesham will make a recommendation to the owners, the Lewis family, if he decides to draw a line under the Tudor era and change again
Lange and Venkatesham have been exploring contingency plans for some time. There are those candidates overlooked when they opted for Tudor, including former Leipzig boss Marco Rose and Adi Hutter, the former Monaco boss whose name surfaced as a viable alternative after the Forest defeat on Sunday.
And yet they would face the same issues as Tudor, stepping cold into a new club and in a new competition, with only seven to play and barely any margin for error.
The old boys would not. They know Spurs. They know the Premier League. Perhaps the feeling is that they will be uncomfortable in the modern culture of sport science and data, which Lange advocates. Perhaps the fear is they might even rail against it.
And yet the more desperate Spurs become, the less outrageous it all seems.
