Tottenham chose to part ways with Igor Tudor on Sunday, just seven matches into his spell as interim coach of a team that has plunged into a relegation fight in the Premier League.
A club statement on Sunday afternoon read: “We can confirm that it has been mutually agreed for head coach Igor Tudor to leave the club with immediate effect.”
Tottenham thanked Tudor for his work and said “An update on a new head coach will be provided in due course.”
Tudor’s
exit leaves Spurs without a head coach heading into the final seven games of the Premier League season, with the London club just one place and one point above the relegation zone.
The Croatian coach was hired on Feb. 14 until the end of the season, but his final match in charge proved to be a 3-0 home loss to Nottingham Forest in the league. That left Tottenham one point above the relegation zone with seven games left as one of England’s biggest clubs battles to preserve its nearly 50-year top-flight status.
After that game, it was announced that Tudor’s father had died and the coach didn’t undertake his post-match media duties.
Tottenham's statement on Sunday said “We also acknowledge the bereavement that Igor has recently suffered and send our support to him and his family at this difficult time.”
Tudor oversaw Tottenham’s round-of-16 exit in the Champions League at the hands of Atletico Madrid. That included a humiliating 5-2 loss in the first leg in Madrid, when Tudor substituted his controversially selected backup goalkeeper, Antonin Kinsky, in the 17th minute.
Former Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi and ex-Burnley and Everton manager Sean Dyche are among the bookmakers’ favorites to take over, or they could turn to Ryan Mason, a boyhood Spurs fan and player who has twice been caretaker before.
Tottenham started the season with a new manager in Thomas Frank, who replaced Ange Postecoglou in the offseason.
Frank lasted eight months but couldn’t replicate his success at previous team Brentford. Tudor was brought in for his first job in English soccer, with a reputation for having an instant impact at clubs, but couldn’t arrest Tottenham’s slide.
His first match was a 4-1 home loss to Arsenal, Tottenham’s fiercest rival and who Tudor described as “probably the best team in the world at this moment” — a comment that, while possibly true, hardly ingratiated him with Spurs fans.
Under Tudor, Spurs completed a six-match losing streak — the worst run of results in the club’s nearly 144-year history.
They haven’t won any of their last 13 games in the Premier League, dating back to the end of December.
Tottenham has been an ever-present in the Premier League since the competition was founded in 1992, and last played in the second tier in the 1977-78 season.
Tudor faced criticism for his professionalism and man-management for the way he treated Kinsky during the match against Atletico.
The Czech goalkeeper was selected for his first game since October and made two mistakes leading to goals in the opening 15 minutes, prompting Tudor to immediately substitute him.
Tudor didn’t acknowledge Kinsky as the young goalkeeper walked off the field and straight down the tunnel.
Former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel felt sorry for Kinsky, saying of Tudor: “What he’s done there, for me, he’s absolutely killed his career. That’s going to take something to get over that.”
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