If many a football club is accused of living in the past, Tottenham may have taken that a stage further by going for the distant past. Not content with being named after Harry Hotspur, the 15th-century warlord, they will be ruled by a Tudor. Admittedly, the choice of Igor Tudor as interim manager probably stems less from any suggestion he is related to Henry or Elizabeth and more from the possibility he can occupy the throne until the king over the water, Mauricio Pochettino, returns in the summer.
But the choice of Tudor also reflects a 21st-century trend. Tottenham managers tend to be the opposite of their predecessor. And if Thomas Frank reeked too much of Brentford by the end, a coach who had come from perhaps the smallest club in the Premier League, who many felt struggled to talk like a Tottenham manager, enter a man whose last job was at Italy’s national obsession, Juventus, who experienced the pressure of the biggest crowds in France, at Marseille, and who, two years ago, was parachuted into Lazio, scarcely a low-pressure environment.
Tottenham can take encouragement from his track record of making a difference immediately. They have 12 league games remaining. Two years ago, Lazio appointed Tudor when they had nine remaining. He won five of them – six of 11 in all competitions – and took them from ninth to seventh.
Last year, Juventus sacked Thiago Motta, also in March, also with nine games to go. Tudor again won five, taking them from fifth to fourth and into the Champions League. The unfortunate sequel, which bodes less well for events on the Seven Sisters Road and may make Frank’s football sound exciting in comparison, is that when Tudor was sacked in October, Juventus had not scored in four games or won in eight. He averaged 0.67 points per game in this season’s Champions League, Frank 2.13.
But Juventus may feel their mistake was to give Tudor a new contract last summer. If he also begins with a short-term task at Tottenham, there is no current option to extend his deal beyond June. And while the Croatian took Lazio and Juventus up the table, the priority for Spurs is simply not to drop down it: below the dotted line, out of the top flight for the first time since promotion in 1978. Their current status in 16th is ignominious but perhaps better than the alternative. After no wins in eight league games, just two in 17, the objective is to halt the slide.
Which, actually, should be quite feasible, despite the crippling injury crisis. Tudor’s first game is a North London derby; more than two decades ago, Martin Jol’s first in the Premier League was, too, and while it was lost, a 4-5 scoreline led to an upturn soon after. But while only Wolves have a worse home record than Spurs, their five other remaining top-flight matches at their deluxe stadium this season are against Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest, Brighton, Leeds and Everton, respectively 13th, 17th, 14th, 15th and 8th now. There is the chance of salvation on their own soil.
The difficulty in replicating his immediate impact in Italy may be his lack of familiarity. By the time Tudor took charge of Lazio, he had been a player in Serie A for nine years, had three stints as a manager and one as assistant; at Juventus, which probably helped him when he was hired in Turin.
He is a newcomer to Tottenham and the Premier League. There may be a comparison with a fellow Croatian with a grounding in Serie A. Ivan Juric probably underestimated the difficulty of managing Southampton, won a solitary league game, got relegated and, it is safe to say, will never manage in England again.
Juric represents the worst-case scenario. Tottenham’s experience of interims is not entirely positive. Cristian Stellini lasted four games, going 5-0 down in 21 minutes to Newcastle in the last. Ryan Mason had two spells, winning six of his 13 matches across them.
But with better players, and more players. Tudor may start his tenure without a dozen. Nor will he benefit from the feelgood factor that shrouded Michael Carrick from the start; that Frank’s penultimate game was against Carrick’s Manchester United and that the former Spurs midfielder would otherwise have been a credible choice to take over at another of his old clubs felt inescapable.
There may have been no obvious answer to Carrick, no one from the Tottenham family ready and able to take charge, once the nostalgia-infused offers from Tim Sherwood and Harry Redknapp were ignored. And so Tottenham turned to an outsider. This particular Tudor is unlikely to found a dynasty. Spurs must hope that, unlike previous Tudor reigns, it will not be bloody.
