Igor Tudor’s reign is turning into one of the all-time managerial disasters.
In Madrid, spineless Spurs were left shamed, abject, morose. If it is possible, they look even more broken than they did under Thomas Frank. The rut feels both strangely familiar and unprecedentedly bad – it is the first time in the club’s history they have lost six in a row.
It is not fair to judge anybody simply on optics and still it is hard to conceive of 17 minutes of worse vibes. Antonin Kinsky, the 22-year-old second-choice goalkeeper, was thrown in for his Champions League debut. After a gut-wrenching horrorshow that saw him taken straight back off, he did not receive so much as a nod of acknowledgment from the interim manager.
Not since Loris Karius has any stopper endured a Champions League night quite like this. Karius would never recover from the mortification.
There is hope that Kinsky may yet, because he had the support of three teammates in particular: Joao Palhinha, Conor Gallagher and Dominic Solanke, who followed him down the tunnel to console him, all perhaps as bewildered at the team selection as he was.
Under Tudor, Tottenham have lost four out of four games and conceded 14. There were the usual mitigating factors; the injuries, a pitch that seemed to have been greased with vegetable oil. Oddly there were elements of this 5-2 defeat that were not that bad, but there can be no losing sight of what Tudor was brought in to do.
The three-month contract he was handed in February was effectively a free hit. Try not to insult the players. Put some of them in the correct positions. Get the fans on board. Take responsibility and offer solutions, rather than diagnosing three problems with the Tottenham Hotspur of 2026: the attack, the defence, and come to think of it, the midfield.
That was the prognosis after the loss at Fulham, and the goalkeeping situation was a notable omission from Tudor’s synopsis. He refused to accept that his system was even a relevant talking point.
A nightmare moment for Kinsky on his debut as his mistake leads to Llorente's opener for Atlético Madrid
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) March 10, 2026@tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/SsHpJxYNIz
Yet he chose Atletico Madrid away as the moment to drop Guglielmo Vicario – not entirely without reason. The Italian has the most clean sheets in the Champions League this season but his domestic form has long been a problem; it was far from unthinkable that his back-up should be given an opportunity.
It was from there that Tudor’s approach became inexplicable. Such was his peculiar attitude towards his own players that when Djed Spence was substituted, he made a point of tapping his coach on the shoulder, as though to make a point that they ought to be shaking hands. There is a vacuum of leadership at all levels of the club.
Even as he remains wedded to his back three and to not starting Palhinha in a game tailor-made for the occasion, no one could seriously blame Tudor for the state in which Spurs find themselves – all but out of Europe and a point above the Premier League drop zone.
He was only asked to avoid two things – relegation and humiliation. On the latter count he has surely failed already. One Atletico fan was seen in the stands revelling in such complacency that he began to make a batch of Iberian ham sandwiches.
To be so ridiculed and unserious is the worst nightmare of a club of Tottenham’s stature. All while hoping to lure back Mauricio Pochettino. As he sat in the crowd there must have been a temptation to blindfold him and whisper that it was 2019 and Harry Kane was still the No 9.
Before the game some had the temerity to question if Atletico, famously the bridesmaids of Spanish football, were the most cursed club in the world.
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As Spurs fans began walking out after 20 minutes, wondering if this was the new manager bounce, there can be no arguments. Imagine what might have happened without a new-manager bounce.
The peak of the Tudor period so far has been a half-hour spell that still ended in a 4-1 defeat in the north London derby. Or was it the brief rally at Fulham once the game was beyond their reach – no, the optical illusion of taking a lead against a weakened Crystal Palace before self-destructing moments later?
In the scheme of those results, a comprehensive defeat at Atletico ought not to signify. It matters only in that it feels terminal – and there is zero evidence that Tudor can dig them out of it.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/RcDNGbB
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