The interim Tottenham head coach has been speaking about the fight ahead as the club look to hold on to their place in the Premier League
Igor Tudor believes he has the soldiers at Tottenham to fight a relegation battle but they will have to do things they won't like to climb the Premier League table.
The Croatian has come into Spurs with the same no-nonsense approach he arrived with at clubs like Juventus, Lazio, Udinese, Hellas Verona and Marseille before dramatically pushing those sides up their respective tables. Tottenham need his football firefighting skills because they sit 16th in the Premier League and just four points above the drop zone.
Tudor admitted after his debut defeat against league leaders Arsenal that the job at Spurs was a bigger one than he expected before he walked through the doors. The 47-year-old has previously stated that he wants the team to come together to go to war and he was asked ahead of Sunday's trip to Fulham whether he has enough soldiers to do so.
"What do you think? I hope so. I believe, yes," said the interim head coach. "After the first game I said if you play against the best team in the world at this moment, for us, I need to be honest, it’s not a realistic game to show we are soldiers or we are not soldiers.
"That's the truth, but they showed they can be in some parts of the game. For long periods in the game we had problems, in defence especially. It’s not easy against them. Let’s see in the next games."
So who are the soldiers for Tudor's reign?
"I will tell you when the season finishes!" said the former Juventus centre-back with a grin.
The two-time Serie A winner believes that the club's injury crisis has meant a core group of players being overplayed and fatigued and he has spent a rare period without midweek matches putting "petrol in the engines".
"Physically, I believe, we are not in an amazing situation. They have played lots of games in the last period without lots of players available and it made the physical condition of the team drop down. So we need to use this period where we don’t play the games to put some petrol in the engine so the engine starts to work better," he said.
"They are fatigued. To press high you need to be fit, but all of them, because if one person is not in the right shape there is a problem because someone is coming late. And the second thing, is that there is the other goal to protect. It is easy to run there but you need to run back, so if you run up and don’t run back it’s a problem.
"We will improve and do these things better over time but in this moment it’s a big question, what we can do and what we cannot do."
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The Spurs players have been shown running in training sessions in recent days and Tudor believes it has to be done to put that petrol in their tanks even if the squad won't like it.
"That’s the only way. Running. The pitch is 100 yards, it’s long! So you need to run," he said. "There are habits. Maybe you have habits to, I don’t know, to work a bit less.
"I put some runs without the ball. Players never like runs without the ball so we put some runs without balls [into the sessions], but it's a moment when there is no time to think too much about what somebody doesn’t like and the best thing is that they understand this. They gave me their availability to do these things."
Tudor downplayed suggestions that he put his players through double training sessions at Juventus, saying: "No, we did not. Just three...no, joking!"
The new man believes that the problems for the Tottenham players can be found both in their legs and in the minds right now.
"It is both things, physical and mental. There is some pressure here in this club, of course. Some players are still young. They were brought here to help and now maybe they are in a moment where they need to resolve the problems," said the Croatian. "So, if you have too many of these players, because of the amount of injuries, who are playing together in the squad it does create some problems, but it is also an opportunity and a challenge to grow fast, to become a man.
"To grow fast and say, ‘Come on, I’m the guy, give me the ball, I will score’ instead of just ‘What can I do? I’m just here you know’. This is the challenge for each of them. Why not? To say, ‘Come on, give me the ball, I will not cry, I will take the ball, I will defend my box’.
"It’s always how you see the situation. You can always see it both ways. Or 'I’m just here and we had 15 players and I was always left out and now we have 10 players out, so I play'. How do you really see that situation? If you are the right guy, positive there is opportunity."
The Spurs boss made it clear that he wants his players to forget the Arsenal game, only having shown them a couple of clips because "it was important to show a few things but not too much".
One man in a Tottenham shirt who did emerge with credit from the north London derby was Randal Kolo Muani. The Frenchman impressed under Tudor at Juventus last season with five goals in 11 matches and when the head coach was told that he got more out of the 27-year-old last weekend than Spurs fans have seen so far this campaign, he grinned broadly.
"That’s good. One good thing!" he said.
So what’s the key to unlocking the France international's talent?
"I don’t know. As I said before, I always do my job, speak with people. Maybe sometimes some players feel better with other coaches," he said. "Sometimes it's style of play, sometimes it's the moment, sometimes it's confidence, the moment of the team, there's a lot of issues to comment. It’s a big theme."
So can Kolo Muani score the goals to get Spurs out of trouble?
"Yeah, I believe, yes," said Tudor. "I really hope he continues to score."
