Tottenham are looking for yet another new face in the dugout as their farcical Premier League campaign took another twist
Tottenham Hotspur find themselves in another fine mess as they prepare to appoint their fourth head coach in the past nine months.
football.london reported on Tuesday that the expectation within the club was that a mutual agreement would be found with Igor Tudor in order for the Croatian to focus on family matters after his father Mario's death and Spurs on the huge pressures of what lies ahead. Five days later, following Mario's funeral in Croatia in midweek, Tottenham announced on Sunday afternoon that such an agreement had been come to.
"We can confirm that it has been mutually agreed for head coach Igor Tudor to leave the club with immediate effect. Tomislav Rogic and Riccardo Ragnacci have also left their respective roles of goalkeeping coach and physical coach," read their statement. "We thank Igor, Tomislav and Riccardo for their efforts during the past six weeks, in which they worked tirelessly. We also acknowledge the bereavement that Igor has recently suffered and send our support to him and his family at this difficult time. An update on a new head coach will be provided in due course."
Tudor was in charge for just 44 days and was unable to win a Premier League match at the helm. His only point came in the draw at Liverpool and his sole victory was the Champions League last 16 second leg tie against Atletico Madrid that was not enough for Spurs to progress to the quarter-finals.
Despite the difficulties of the past week, Tudor is understood to have been back in the UK and took training on Saturday and Sunday with the handful of available first team players not on international duty as they returned from some time off. Now coach Bruno Saltor will take the sessions for the next couple of days.
football.london understands that Spurs CEO Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange expect to have a new head coach in place in time for when the remaining players are back from international duty, giving the new man 10 days to work with the squad ahead of the Premier League game at Sunderland.
The preference is to bring in a permanent new head coach to steer the club in the right direction.
Spurs are believed to have looked into the possibility of luring a currently-employed manager to swap the safety of their position for this tough scenario.
Mauricio Pochettino would certainly be a popular choice with the fans and take the heat off the club hierarchy. His involvement with the USA is less time-consuming in the weeks ahead than the schedule a Premier League manager would face but it would be a difficult task to make any such kind of unusual arrangement work before and after a World Cup and leave the Argentine focused on two different things.
The alternative to luring someone from paid employment leaves Roberto De Zerbi as the obvious available permanent candidate right now after the Italian left Marseille last month by mutual consent following a 5-0 defeat to PSG.
The Italian was set to be a potential candidate in the summer for the permanent role, alongside Pochettino, Bournemouth's Andoni Iraola and Fulham's Marco Silva among others, but the situation at Spurs has become so desperate that any desire to examine a wider managerial market after the end of the campaign could prove redundant if the club fall into the Championship.
The problem has been convincing De Zerbi to take on a job that two other men have failed in this campaign and risk adding a relegation to his CV if there is not enough time to imprint his very specific, high energy style on this confidence-drained group of players.
Tottenham are likely to be willing to offer the 46-year-old a major salary and bonus for keeping Spurs in the Premier League as it would dwarf the huge financial losses relegation would bring.
Various supporter groups, including Women of the Lane, Proud Lilywhites and Spurs Reach, have all hit out at the club's interest in De Zerbi due to his support of Marseille striker Mason Greenwood.
If De Zerbi decides there is not enough time to turn around this Spurs squad or simply that he may have more clubs to choose from in the summer then the north London club would have to look at interim appointments.
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Tottenham have been linked with those who have been inside the club before, like two-time former caretaker head coach Ryan Mason, ex-Spurs bosses Harry Redknapp and Glenn Hoddle, former player and assistant coach Chris Hughton, ex-Tottenham striker Robbie Keane who is believed to only want the permanent job.
Those outside the club include for the former Burnley and Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche as well as Edin Terzic and Marco Rose, who were both in the frame before Tudor was announced.
Former Monaco boss Adolf 'Adi' Hutter ruled himself out of the running on Sunday. In a statement reported by Sky Sports News in his native Austria, he said: "In recent days and weeks, I have been increasingly linked with various clubs. However, as I already stated immediately after my time at Monaco, I would prefer not to work as a head coach again until the start of the new season at the earliest. My position on this matter has not changed since then."
There would be a huge risk involved in appointing yet another foreign coach without Premier League experience. Some have suggested that a first team player like Ben Davies could be involved in any interim coaching staff.
The Welshman, who underwent ankle surgery in January, told football.london last summer that he hoped to play for a few years longer despite obtaining his UEFA A coaching licence - an unusual achievement for a currently playing Premier League player. Davies' contract at Spurs comes to an end this summer after 12 years in north London.
Tottenham are yet to win a single Premier League match in 2026 and whatever Venkatesham and Lange decide will be the final roll of the dice in the messiest and most embarrassing of seasons.
Ange Postecoglou was sacked just a few weeks after lifting Tottenham's first trophy in 17 years, to be replaced by Thomas Frank. The supporters soon turned on the Dane though due to turgid performances with running and possession stats tumbling, all of which was compounded by his struggles to communicate effectively with the fanbase.
Tudor got the players running again but fared no better with the results as his ill-fitting tactics rarely got the best out of Frank's injury-ravaged squad. The Croatian was a football firefighter at struggling clubs in Serie A, but soon admitted the job in north London was far beyond what he had expected.
He ended up being ill prepared for it and that falls back on his appointment by Lange and Venkatesham, who are both squarely in the spotlight after a string of decisions gone wrong.
As they did under former chairman Daniel Levy, Spurs continue to lurch from one type of manager to the next, leaving the players and fans dizzy as they turn their eyes from one brand of football to the next. Now those eyes must turn to the looming danger below and whether the club's freefall can be slowed and stopped before it's too late. Otherwise disaster beckons.
