Tottenham Hotspur interim head coach Igor Tudor says ensuring the club avoid relegation from the Premier League represents the hardest challenge of his career.
Spurs’ woeful run of form under Thomas Frank saw the Dane sacked earlier this month, with Tudor brought in to replicate the kind of mid-season recovery he managed with Italian sides Juventus and Lazio.
Tottenham last played outside the English top flight in the 1977/78 season and Tudor’s first game in charge ended in a 4-1 derby defeat to north London rivals and league leaders Arsenal on Sunday.
This latest loss extended Tottenham’s winless league run to nine matches and made it only two wins from their last 18 in the division. Spurs are now 16th in the table and just four points above the bottom three ahead of Sunday’s match away to Fulham. Tudor, asked Thursday if this was his biggest rescue job, replied: “Probably, if I see, if I recognize the difficulties there are, probably, yes. It’s even a bigger challenge, even a bigger motivation to do this and we do it.”
He added the role was harder than he envisaged, but stressed work on the training ground can spark a revival.
“Probably yes,” Tudor said. “Yes, very tough, but it’s what I said before, I don’t change my opinion, it is how it is, so, daily work, focus, raising in all things we need to do, physical condition, mental confidence, performance and waiting for the players to come back.
“We need to be focused on us, what we can do, less thinking about others, that’s always good and it will be good.”
Spurs will discover their Champions League opponents for the last 16 on Friday, but Tudor promised to waste no “energy” on European fixtures with either Atletico Madrid or Galatasaray. “I don’t think too much about the draw,” he said. “It won’t change for me nothing.” The Croatian will be buoyed by the return of defender Kevin Danso and full-back Pedro Porro for Sunday’s fixture at Craven Cottage.