The fallout from Tottenham Hotspur’s decision to sack Thomas Frank has dragged into a second week.
After contacting Robbie Keane and informally approaching Edin Terzic and Marco Rose about the vacancy, Igor Tudor was announced as Frank’s replacement over the weekend. The 47-year-old Croatian, previously in charge at Marseille, Lazio and Juventus, among others, will take charge on an interim basis until the end of the season.
However, there were still a few issues to resolve with the rest of the coaching staff. Would Tudor be allowed to bring in his own team of assistants, or be forced to work with the carryovers from Frank’s regime?
Negotiations with Brentford over hiring Frank last summer were complicated by how many of his colleagues he wanted to bring with him. Spurs paid Brentford £6.7million to hire the Dane, but that figure rises when you include the appointments of assistant coach Justin Cochrane, head of performance Chris Haslam and analyst Joe Newton. Medical lead Nick Stubbings, head of strength and conditioning Tom Perryman and nutritionist Ted Munson worked under Frank at Brentford, too.
Andreas Georgson left Manchester United last summer to move to Spurs and he has a long-term connection to Frank, having been in charge of his Brentford side’s set-piece routines during the 2019-20 season, when they finished third in the Championship then lost the play-off final to Fulham.
Frank’s backroom staff was completed by first-team assistant coach Matt Wells, goalkeeping coach Fabian Otte, individual development coach (IDP) Cameron Campbell, first-team/academy transition coach Stuart Lewis and assistant goalkeeping coach Dean Brill. In an interview which was published on the club’s website at the time, Frank revealed he requested the newly-created role of an IDP coach, along with sporting director Johan Lange.
Wells was the only member of Ange Postecoglou’s first-team staff to stick around when the Australian was fired at the end of last season, while Lewis and Brill were promoted from the academy. Frank’s assistants were a blend of people who had worked with him for a long time, had experience of European competition or had a long-term connection to Spurs.
On Monday, The Athletic reported that Cochrane, Haslam and Newton had followed Frank out of the exit door, along with John Heitinga. The latter only joined the club in the middle of January. Heitinga, who was one of Arne Slot’s assistants when Liverpool won the Premier League last season, departed only 33 days after he was appointed as a first-team assistant coach. It is a farcical situation which highlights the mess Tottenham now find themselves in.
It makes sense that Cochrane, Haslam and Newton have gone, because of how close they were to Frank. It is a particular shame that things did not work out with Cochrane, who will now fully focus on his role assisting England head coach Thomas Tuchel at this summer’s World Cup. Cochrane had spent time working in Tottenham’s academy earlier in his career and the move across London from Brentford was supposed to be a grand homecoming that reunited him with Wells, a colleague in those days, though the latter left the staff in December to become head coach of MLS side Colorado Rapids.
Tudor has been allowed to bring in a few familiar faces to support him. Ivan Javorcic will be his assistant, Riccardo Ragnacci is the new physical coach and Tomislav Rogic will work with the goalkeepers.
Rogic is arguably Tudor’s most trusted lieutenant. They have known each other since 2014, when Rogic briefly worked under Tudor in what was the latter’s first crack at management in their homeland with Hajduk Split. Rogic gained further experience at Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk, Zenit in Russia, Club Brugge of Belgium, India’s national team and China’s Shanghai Port before he was reunited with Tudor two years ago at Lazio and then joined him at Juventus.
Ragnacci has also worked with Tudor on a couple of occasions.
They first crossed paths during 2021-22, when Tudor led Hellas Verona to a ninth-placed finish in Serie A. Tudor left the club that summer and went to Marseille but Ragnacci stayed on for another 12 months. He spent a season each at Lecce and Empoli before the pair were reunited at Juventus last year. Tudor had replaced Thiago Motta as head coach in the March on an interim basis and was handed the role permanently after qualifying the Turin club for the Champions League — they finished fourth, a point ahead of Roma. Ragnacci joined his coaching staff in July but left three months later when Tudor was fired.
Javorcic represented Brescia during his playing career and had a spell with Atalanta as well as Italian lower-league sides Crotone, Treviso, Arezzo and Pizzighettone. He had a brief spell in charge of Venezia in 2022 and became countryman Tudor’s assistant at Lazio two years later. Tudor replaced former Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri as head coach in March 2024 and won five of his nine league games in charge. Lazio qualified for the Europa League by finishing seventh but Tudor left that summer due to a dispute with the club’s owner and sporting director. Rogic and Javorcic both followed him to Juventus early last year.
On paper, it seems like a messy situation.
Tudor’s backroom staff is now a wild mix which includes people loyal to Frank, or who he recommended to Spurs. He needs to find a way to quickly forge a tight-knit unit with everybody on board as Tottenham try to stave off relegation. The risk with these situations is that Tudor only trusts his long-term associates and the other coaches are left feeling excluded or unable to have an input on tactics and team selection.
Pay close attention to the dynamic between the goalkeeping coaches, Otte and Rogic.
Otte has previously worked with the United States’ men’s national team (USMNT), Burnley, Borussia Monchengladbach and Liverpool. Retaining him suggests Spurs want Otte to be part of the long-term coaching staff regardless of what happens with Tudor over the next three months. Yet we are in a situation where he, Rogic and Brill will be responsible for only three senior goalkeepers. And how will first-choice Guglielmo Vicario react if newcomer Rogic asks him to do something completely different to what was expected under Frank? It will be slightly awkward undermining Otte’s previous instructions right in front of the guy.
It will be interesting to see how all the players react, really.
The majority of this squad will be working under their third head coach in less than a year. They are constantly being asked to adapt to different formations and styles of play. Tottenham’s next game is a home north London derby against arch-rivals and Premier League leaders Arsenal. Tudor probably does not have enough time with the squad before that match on Sunday. Spurs are also grappling with an injury crisis for the second season in a row, which gives Tudor a limited group of players to pick from.
Based on his previous jobs, the Croatian prefers to use a 3-4-2-1 system, but centre-back and captain Cristian Romero has only served one game of a four-match suspension while first-choice full-backs Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro are both injured, massively restricting his defensive options.
Research has shown that footballers are more susceptible to injuries after a coaching change, due to the new tactical demands placed on them. Tudor and his staff have to try to strike a delicate balance between injecting more energy and intensity into the team’s performance without overloading individuals.
It is an imperfect and disjointed coaching staff, but all that matters is they pick up enough points over the remaining 12 games to propel 16th-placed Spurs away from the relegation zone.