Tudor was a left-field gamble that went wrong from the start.
His unique selling point, in an appointment that smacked of panic from Tottenham‘s hierarchy, was that he had a chequered coaching career but a record of having the sort of instant impact the club required.
This never materialised. He became the first man in charge of Spurs to lose his first four matches, starting with that heavy 4-1 home defeat by Arsenal.
Tudor’s brusque, plain speaking style got no more out of the Spurs squad than Frank’s more empathetic approach. It never made any connection with the Spurs players, while a welter of tactical shifts hinted that he was struggling to work out how to get the best out of the shambles he had inherited.
The low point came in the Champions League last 16 first leg at Atletico Madrid where he gambled on selecting Antonin Kinsky in goal ahead of first-choice Guglielmo Vicario, only to remove the young Czech after just 17 minutes following two catastrophic errors that left Spurs 3-0 down in an eventual 5-2 defeat.
Tudor was also criticised for the manner in which he ignored Kinsky when he went off, comfort being left to his colleagues on the pitch, as well as Conor Gallagher and Dominic Solanke, who followed him down the tunnel to console him.
Improvement could be detected in the deserved draw at Liverpool before an honourable win in the Champions League exit to Atletico – but normal dismal service was resumed in last Sunday’s highly-damaging 3-0 home defeat by fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest.
In Tudor’s defence, he took over a shell-shocked and struggling squad decimated by injuries and stripped of confidence. There is no guarantee anyone else would have done markedly better.
In this emergency situation, Spurs had to act, but the whole episode reflects more badly on those at the top of the club than it does on Tudor.
