Igor Tudor says the salvage operation he has taken on at Tottenham is tougher than he envisaged and is most likely his hardest job in management.
The interim coach, who is preparing for Sunday’s Premier League trip to Fulham, has worked with his new squad since the beginning of last week, having replaced the sacked Thomas Frank. Tudor lost his first game 4-1 at home to Arsenal on Sunday, which left Spurs four points above the relegation zone.
An alarming fitness situation has improved slightly with the return of Pedro Porro and Kevin Danso to training, meaning Tudor will be without eight injured players at Fulham, plus the suspended Cristian Romero, though Micky Van de Ven is expected to be fit.
Spurs are without a win in nine league matches and Tudor’s eyes are wide open about the scale of the task. “Probably, yes … I agree with you,” Tudor said when asked whether the role was more difficult than expected.
“It’s very tough … but it is how it is. So daily work, focus, raising in all things we need to do – physical condition, mental confidence, performance and waiting for the [injured] players to come back.”
Tudor started work as a manager in 2013 and is now in his 12th job. Was it the biggest challenge? “Probably,” he said. “If I recognise the difficulties there are, probably, yes. It’s an even bigger challenge, an even bigger motivation to do this and we do it.”
Tudor described Spurs’s plight before the Arsenal game as an “emergency situation” and he warmed to the theme before another derby. “It’s not looking to the style at this moment,” he said. “Because now it’s a question of life and death.
“There is not too much time to think about performance or style. Every game needs to be prepared in that way. How we can take these points, one way or the other?
“In Italy, they use the term ‘have the mentality of a small team.’ That is the key, to always have motivation when you play big teams. So that’s the start, of course, and we work a lot on that. The players are aware of the situation.”
Like Frank before him, Tudor refuses to use the R word – relegation. “I never used it but not because it’s something too scary or it’s a danger word or we won’t sleep,” he said. “It’s about that we need to refocus on ourselves.”
