The Tottenham Hotspur interim head coach has been speaking about his style and the club's problems ahead of the game against Crystal Palace
Igor Tudor has made it clear that he is a hugger not a screamer as he looks to keep Tottenham gripped to their Premier League status.
The Croatian arrived at the north London club with a reputation as a no-holds barred central defender at Juventus and a tough coach after he hung up his boots, able to force a quick turnaround at the clubs he has managed. That has not happened yet at Spurs though with his first two games resulting in defeats against Arsenal and Fulham.
An angry Tudor blasted his players on Sunday saying that they lacked in attack, defence and in their running at Craven Cottage and the 47-year-old believes that honesty is the only way to turn Tottenham's troubles around.
"Always the players need honesty. One of the skills of a coach is to be honest, in the right way of course, to speak with them. Without honesty you are dead," said the interim head coach.
"They need to recognise in you that here is a person who wants to say the things from a good (place), not in a negative way. They need to recognise in you that you are telling them for the best. Then you can tell them everything."
Ahead of Thursday night's crunch match against Crystal Palace, the former centre-back looked offended when it was suggested that some in Italy had said his style was more disciplinarian than someone who would put an arm around players.
"Who says that? That's not true. Without hugging, without connection with the player you cannot do anything," he said. "It's not true. There's not one coach in the world who can come and go [only] with the stick. The players will say ‘who are you?’ There is a relationship, there is honesty.
"There is a right way to do it. I’m not coming here to shout at players or scream at them. You have totally the wrong image of me."
Tudor hit out at a video posted by the Premier League on their social media channels mocking a free-kick taken by Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario which bypassed all of his team-mates. The video was later deleted after the club contacted the organisation.
"I’m sure they are aware of the mistake they made and they will not do in the future," said the Tottenham boss. "Not nice, not nice. Vicario is a fantastic guy, a fantastic player. I spoke with him. He’s OK. It’s part of the job, with the social media.
"For sure it is not good, but we are living in an era of information. Every day, hundreds of new information bombarding these players.
“They need to be strong. They need to accept. For sure when I was a player I lived in a better world from that point of view. You could have your life as normal. Now there are two lives. One here and one in this (picks up phone) which is sometimes not too easy to manage, for them, for the young people they are.
"So they need to be very informed, very aware, to pay attention and try to stay as much as possible in the real world."
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One player who Tudor believes will play a key role for Tottenham in the remainder of the season despite his struggles in the weeks since his £35million move from Atletico Madrid is Conor Gallagher, who come up against one of his former sides on Thursday night.
"He's a very sensible guy. A fantastic person and a very good player. I like him very much as a player. He’s a player who has amazing skills in both directions. I saw him this week better [in training]. He can give us what we need with his experience, his quality, his knowledge. He’s working good. He can be [a leader]," said the Croatian.
Tudor played Gallagher out wide on the right in the defeat at Fulham on Sunday and it was a role that the England midfielder had to occasionally play in Spain, even if it's not his favoured position.
"We need to adapt sometimes the players who are not [natural to certain positions], but he played as a winger in Atletico. A winger who is a little bit inside," he said. "We don’t have anyone. We have problems with the players. So sometimes someone needs to adapt a little bit their position to do it. When you have this emergency, someone needs to do something."
Another player who has caught Tudor's eye is Richarlison and even just discussing the way the Brazilian chats with him made the Tottenham smile as he spoke.
"I like the guy, I like him. It’s simpatico, it’s a guy who is always interesting to speak with him, of his style of speaking," he grinned. "Fantastic player, fantastic player, he can play all positions, with two strikers, with three. So, he will give us something for sure in the next games."
So what has been different about Tudor's start at Tottenham bearing in mind he has won his opening game at each of his previous five clubs and improved all of them in those opening months. Juventus, Lazio, Udinese (twice), Marseille and many others have all had an injection of good form after his arrival but nothing similar has of yet has been shown in north London.
"It’s impossible to compare because every situation is very different. Impossible. The problems are totally different. At Juventus, there were 20 players for all these positions. Here, you come you have 12 players," he said. "There you fight for the Champions League. Here, you fight for relegation. That’s a start.
"Then you go player by player and there are big differences everywhere. It’s not like you go and do the job in the same way and have the same results. It’s impossible because the level of difficulty is always different. There is no copy in anything, it’s a different team, different league, different position, different players.
"The same coach can start the season with different teams and will do totally different things… doing the same things in different teams… even the way you see the team. It’s impossible to compare. You can only compare the levels of difficulty. Where are the biggest problems? For me, this problem of Tottenham is bigger.
"How big is the challenge, how big is the problem in the clubs, I can tell you. There are no mathematics but what I feel, what I can see, this problem is bigger."
But why?
"Next question."
Despite further pushing, Tudor was not keen on opening up on exactly what the problems are inside Tottenham.
"I cannot come here and discuss like we are in the bar. I already explained what I can tell you, what I want to tell you," he said. "Don’t expect details about what, because it’s not correct from your side and this is no place to speak in that way."
Tudor will be hoping to grab that first victory against Palace on Thursday night and ease some of those problems he's not inclined to speak about.
