More strange than Tottenham's appointment of Igor Tudor is that he is still in charge at Spurs at the moment. Bringing a new coach - who has become Tottenham's 12th coach in the past 11 years - at the turning point of the Premier League season is a difficult-to-understand decision. Tudor's coaching profile is long but not very impressive, and he has never had experience working in club football in England.
It is even more unbelievable that this experiment has lasted up to 4 matches and seems to still not show signs of stopping. After the defeat in Madrid, the clear conclusion is that any replacement candidate can hardly do worse than the Croatian strategist.
Everything started from Daniel Levy's decision to fire Ange Postecoglou. This may be a look back at the past with much regret, but Postecoglou has just brought Spurs a big title. He has also not lost the trust of the players in the dressing room and has not been turned away by most fans.
In this stage last season, Tottenham under Postecoglou had 34 points after 29 matches. The bottom 3 teams played poorly, but Spurs at that time almost soon secured a relegation spot.
Currently, Tudor's team only has 29 points after 29 matches and is at risk of stalling at this number if they continue to lose in the away match to Anfield stadium. Meanwhile, Postecoglou's winning rate when leading Tottenham is 46.5% - not too excellent, but clearly not bad either.
At that time, Levy was no longer directly involved too deeply in the decision-making process at Spurs, but CEO Vina Venkatesham was the opposite. When appointing a new coach before that, he once said that the club had identified 10 important criteria to find a suitable coach and analyzed more details than 30 candidates.
The question is whether Tottenham will do the same when they realize they are about to change again. Frankly speaking, everything at present shows that Spurs' leadership seems not really sure about their direction.
A capable coaching staff should have found a coach who could at least organize a stable defense system. However, under Tudor, Tottenham has only scored 5 goals but conceded 14 times.
At a time when the relegation race in the Premier League is becoming tense, the mental factor plays an extremely important role. And Tottenham is clearly lacking that.
When many former Tottenham legends proposed Harry Redknapp to return to coach Spurs after Postecoglou left, that idea initially sounded ridiculous. The reason is simple because Redknapp is nearly 79 years old. But after what has happened, it would not be bad if that scenario appeared...
