In the city that hosts Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, Tottenham produced their own surrealist masterpiece to convey a horrific occasion. The shock was not that they lost 5-2 to Atletico Madrid – indeed, there was a relative respectability to the scoreline, given what it could have been – but the manner of it, the four goals gifted to Diego Simeone’s side in absurd fashion, the sight of a traumatised goalkeeper being substituted in the 17th minute.
It is sadly safe to say Antonin Kinsky’s memories of Madrid will not revolve around the Plaza Mayor. And yet, awful as his evening was, his manager came out of it still worse.
A previous Tudor, Mary I, was queen of Spain. For Igor Tudor, this felt confirmation a brief and bloody reign in charge of Tottenham will soon be curtailed. His reputation may survive in Italy, but not in England. Kinsky faces a battle to rebuild his career; Tudor’s is surely beyond repair in the Premier League.
Tudor threw Kinsky into the biggest game of his career. Three goals and two awful blunders later came the public humiliation and the silent treatment. These Tottenham players have been accused of lacking character but at least they showed compassion in their treatment of Kinsky. Tudor displayed none, blanking him as he went off, whereas a trio – Cristian Romero, Kevin Danso and Pedro Porro – had commiserated with the 22-year-old and three more – Joao Palhinha, Dominic Solanke and Conor Gallagher – immediately headed to the dressing room.
What Tudor may have deemed a cold pragmatism was interpreted as a lack of leadership, a callous treatment of a youngster chosen by a floundering manager.
That former goalkeepers – Joe Hart, Paul Robinson, Peter Schmeichel – were among the most critical showed an understanding of the unique demands of the position. The duty of care came from colleagues who had at least known him for longer: Tudor and Kinsky were strangers four weeks ago.
And the obvious reservation about Tudor’s interim appointment – that he knew neither Spurs nor the division – was not based on Little Englanderism, but a sense a short-term task required someone qualified to make an immediate impact. Tudor has had four games, picked the wrong team in all four, seen Spurs concede 14 goals and taken a situation that was worrying and turned it into one that is potentially ruinous.
That he has no rapport with his players is clear; when Djed Spence was substituted, in less mortifying fashion than Kinsky, he went back to Tudor to force him to shake his hand, seemingly making a point.
Tudor’s Tottenham are a product of bad decision-making: by him, by his players, by the hierarchy above him. There are people in the wrong roles, and not merely the Croatian in the dugout. Tudor used Porro as a right-sided centre-back against Crystal Palace. At Fulham, Xavi Simons and Gallagher, each coveting a central role, were the wide men in a 4-4-2 formation; in Madrid, the season’s two flagship signings were both substitutes.
Tudor has achieved the unwanted double of looking useless and luckless. “It looks like everything is against us,” he bemoaned in Madrid after Spurs’ propensity for self-harm was summed up when Palhinha and Romero headed each other in injury time, leaving both potentially concussed and out of Sunday’s trip to Anfield, for which Micky van de Ven is already banned.
There is a sense to which his team are architects of their own downfall, though. Their 22-minute exercise in embarrassment at the start at the Metropolitano was arguably Tottenham’s worst spell for precisely one game: since conceding three in 19 minutes to a weakened Palace side. This was no one-off.
Tudor is the figurehead for failure but, as Spurs are on their longest winless run in the league for half a century a and have lost six games in a row for the first time in their history, there is plenty of blame to be shared around, The fans who booed Guglielmo Vicario earlier in the season may want to reflect on their actions; the Italian’s deputy, Kinsky, has proved worse.
Then there is Fabio Paratici, the sporting director now employed by Fiorentina whose parting gift was seemingly to recommend Tudor. Daniel Levy may have created the conditions for Spurs’ slide; equally, they might miss the more purposeful leadership of the former chairman.
For chief executive Vinai Vinkatesham, the remaining sporting director Johan Lange, the non-executive chairman Peter Charrington and the Lewis family, who seemed trapped by paralysis as Thomas Frank’s reign unravelled and then lurched into crisis with Tudor, the next decision seems critical.
After Tudor hung Kinsky out to dry, choosing him for a game to which he was sadly unsuited, there may be some poetic justice to leaving the Croatian in place for Liverpool and the return leg with Atletico before installing someone capable of spurring them to safety.
He had worn items from the club shop on the touchline at the Metropolitano. Perhaps the puffer jacket and baseball cap will be part of the severance package but Tudor has never looked the manager Tottenham need now.
