Igor Tudor has gone but Tottenham are still hollow, confused and in deep trouble

Igor Tudor’s 44-day Tottenham Hotspur tenure is over, yet the club that employed him remains trapped in the same mire of confusion and institutional decay that produced the appointment in the first place. The Croatian’s exit, sealed after no league wins and a Champions League elimination, has done nothing to lift the fog of a relegation fight that feels less like a freak storm and more like the inevitable unveiling of years of structural neglect.

Inside the dressing-room the mood is bleak. Speaking on Sky Sports, former Spurs manager Tim Sherwood captured the desperation: “They need an arm round the shoulder. I’d tell Xavi Simons he’s the new Luka Modric. Obviously he’s not but I’d tell him he was.” The quip, absurd on the surface, mirrors the surrealism now engulfing N17, where quick-fix fantasies have replaced coherent planning.

Tudor arrived in late March looking every inch the modern coach—pointy beard, designer trainers, the air of a Renaissance duke en route to a corporate golf outing. He departs with the haunted stare of a man who has peered into the abyss and found it staring back. In between, Tottenham sank deeper: no victories, heavy defeats, a home loss to a relegation rival, and a carousel of formations that betrayed a coach making it up on the fly. In 17 first-half minutes he managed to compromise two goalkeepers; by full-time on Sunday he was out of a job that should never have been offered.

The responsibility, however, lies not with Tudor but with the executives who convinced themselves that four games at Udinese and zero experience of English football qualified him to steer a wounded giant away from the drop. Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange reportedly championed the move, a decision whose stupidity, even by Spurs’ recent standards, remains startling.

Now the search for a successor risks turning into farce. Early names floated included a betting-company pitchman and a manager who has already “been dead for a bit.” Gareth Southgate, linked via LinkedIn Live, felt more like a decoy than a plan. Roberto De Zerbi, a talented coach, is the current favourite, yet his potential arrival smacks of another reactive U-turn: if the grizzled disciplinarian failed, try the younger bearded tactician instead.

The deeper problem is that nothing fundamental has changed. The same board that served up the Tudor experiment remains in place, armed with the same scattergun recruitment model and the same apparent indifference to footballing coherence. Relegation is no longer an abstract fear; it is a four-way duel with West Ham, Nottingham Forest and Leeds in which three wins from the final seven fixtures might be enough. Spurs possess, on paper, a fair clutch of highly rated footballers. Yet paper does not account for the death-wish-ball now being played: listless performances, players who look emotionally detached, and an executive class that seems to treat survival as someone else’s problem.

Supporters, once proud of a club that prided itself on punching above its weight, now confront a hollowing out of purpose. The stadium is magnificent, the training ground world-class, but the football operation resembles a sugar-frosted shell with no centre. What is Tottenham Hotspur in 2024? Not, evidently, an organisation primarily concerned with winning matches or nourishing fan loyalty. Instead it feels like a multi-platform leisure brand whose custodians have spent years sailing close to the wind, trusting that individual brilliance would paper over systemic cracks.

Daniel Levy’s culpability is complex. He built the gleaming infrastructure and, until recently, balanced sporting and commercial demands well enough to keep Spurs relevant. Yet the last two seasons—finishing fourth-from-bottom last year and now flirting with an historic relegation—trace back to a transfer policy of mid-range punts while rivals invested decisively. Levy’s absence from public view during the current crisis has only amplified the sense of drift.

Seven games remain. Seven chances to avoid a humiliation that would rank among the Premier League’s greatest shocks. The maths may still favour survival, but maths offers little comfort to a fanbase watching its club dismantle itself in real time. Igor Tudor will soon be granted the courtesy of amnesia, his reign reduced to a surreal footnote. Tottenham Hotspur, however, must live with the institutional chaos that produced him—and with the very real possibility that the abyss is not done staring back.

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