LIgor Tudor was bullish after Tottenham lost 4-1 at home to Arsenal last week. In the post-match press conference, he could have been seen as the man with the energy and personality to pull Spurs out of the relegation zone. Tudor was left depressed after Tottenham lost 2-1 to Fulham this week. Last week, he said the North London derby defeat was part of that process and was the kind of game that made the players understand what was expected of them. This week he was tweeting about just having to forget about the game and move on. A week’s work at Tottenham seemed to have exhausted him.
Tudor is a professional firefighter. He has rescued the team from a dire situation, four points clear of the relegation zone with 10 games remaining, and that is where Spurs currently stand. But that’s what makes his defeatist tone so shocking. He spoke of “big problems” and brushed off questions about the 4-4-2 formation, with a snort from a man asked about shadows on the hallway carpet as the roof burned down. He spoke of an attack that lacked quality, a midfield that couldn’t run, and a defense that wasn’t ready to “suffer” to prevent goals. He made it quite clear that he thought the players lacked the necessary character, pointing out how Fulham were better at reading the game and accusing them of lacking “brains”.
Perhaps this is also part of his process. Perhaps he is hoping to provoke a reaction from his players. Maybe he thinks he has nothing left to lose. However, it was similar to Antonio Conte’s infamous attack on the team and managers after the Tottenham side drew with Southampton in March 2023.
“This is Tottenham’s history. They’ve had an owner for 20 years and they’ve never won a game. Why?” Conte fumed. “The club has a responsibility for the transfer market, a responsibility for all the coaches who remained here. And the players? The players? Where are the players? From my experience, if you want to be competitive, if you want to fight, you need to improve this aspect. And I can say that this aspect is really, really low at the moment. And we only have 11 players who are playing for themselves.”
Conte left the club eight days later by mutual consent.
Rumors are already circulating about the future of the Tudor dynasty. Tottenham have won just two of their last 19 league games since beating Everton in October. They would have scored 12 points in half the season. They haven’t won in 10 years. We’ve lost the last four times. That is a form of demotion. They are only five points worse off than they were after 28 games last season, but there was a clear bottom three that was already adrift at the time. This time, that part of the table is more volatile, and what seemed unbelievable a few weeks ago now feels frighteningly real. Tottenham may actually be eliminated.
This should be unthinkable. After all, they are the defending champions of the Europa League and finished fourth in the Champions League league phase. This probably says more about the relative strength of the Premier League and the rest of Europe than it does about Spurs. They were one of the five clubs that led the breakaway to create the Premier League in 1992, and one of six English clubs involved in the doomed Super League project. Ten years ago on Saturday, they beat Swansea to move within two points of league leaders Leicester. They have, by common consent, the best stadium in the country. How did this happen?
Injuries are obviously a part of it. Spurs are currently without Jed Spence, Destiny Oudogui, Ben Davies, Rodrygo Bentancur, Lucas Bergvall, Mohamed Kudus, Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison and Wilson Odbert due to injury, while Cristian Romero is currently serving a four-game ban after receiving a red card against Manchester United. Dominic Solanke and Radu Dragusin are currently fit, but both have missed large parts of the season. That’s not normal, but something similar happened last season.
Building a team is part of that. The group of players challenging for the title from 10 years ago has aged and not been refreshed. This was partly to do with the cost of a new stadium, but also because of Tottenham’s fear of being perceived as a selling club. Perhaps there was also a fear that they would not be able to spend well, which was justified in subsequent years, and their reluctance to spend made the situation even worse. No team in the Premier League had a lower wage-to-turnover ratio than Spurs last season.
The lack of a comprehensive footballing vision has led to a succession of vastly different managers, from Jose Mourinho to Nuno Espirito Santo to Conte to Ange Postecoglou and Thomas Frank. The squad that remains is a mishmash of promising but largely unproven young talent and stagnant players with proven Premier League credentials.
And while the Spurs stood still, other teams caught up. Last season’s warnings went unheeded and Spurs’ league situation is even worse now that at least two of the promoted sides have proven they can compete.
The economic impact of relegation is devastating, but it’s also embarrassing. If Spurs were to be relegated, it would be worse than their relegation in 1977. Perhaps the most shocking relegation since Manchester United in 1974. Modern football is not designed for this.
This is an excerpt from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, the Guardian’s weekly coverage of matches in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com. We’ll probably get the best answer in a future version.
