Igor Tudor tells Tottenham players ‘you can cry or you can fight’
By George Sessions, Press Association
Under-fire Igor Tudor has told Tottenham players not to be “victims” and to ignore the “b******s” in a desperate bid to rally his low-on-confidence squad for Sunday’s trip to Liverpool.
Pressure ramped up on interim head coach Tudor after Spurs slipped to a 5-2 loss at Atletico Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday, following a shambolic opening where back-up goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky made two disastrous errors.
Kinsky was substituted after only 17 minutes, but Tudor watched Tottenham lose again to make it four defeats in a row to start his tenure, which is a first in the club’s histor,y and the six consecutive losses they have suffered this year is also a record.
“Not easy situation, not an easy moment and from other side a big challenge to change things. Like everything in life, you can choose how to see the situation. So, you can stay and cry or you can fight,” Tudor insisted.
“You can be the victim or you can say I can change something. This is the message I want to start and what I told to the players. Everyone speaking, everyone has opinions and the life is always how you see it. The bottle is always half empty or half full.
“Here there is nothing full, there is a lot of empty things but difficult moments don’t last forever. It will pass and I believe the players who will take this as a challenge, as an opportunity will stand up with the courage to change things, after this period they will become better people and better players.
“So, in tough moments it’s always about that, it’s always about us. In the last period, a lot of things about what is the club, the problems, no one can do nothing and this like victim-ism, like we were victims.
“I said this morning to the players totally opposition things. We are the team and we are the staff. It’s all about us. All the b*******, all the other things are b******* and sorry to use this word, but it’s on us.
“I do every day this work. Psychology work. It is important also to give the courage to the team-mates. Some of them they cannot manage, for sure. Somewhere you arrive and you can help them.
“My goal is to find if I can help to do 18 players out of 20, 15? I don’t know how much? Sometimes you cannot do anything, but most of the time you can do even small changes.
“Small help, you know, you can do it, but also it’s what I always like to say to the players, don’t be a victim.
“Don’t think it’s not about me. You know that can be the problem more than all these things about Tottenham and club, you know, like magic on the club, like bad black magic and these other b*******, you know. So this is about what I want to send a message.”
During a tense press conference where Tudor insisted his future was “not a topic”, he confirmed that captain Cristian Romero and Joao Palhinha will miss the trip to Anfield.
Both are following concussion protocols, but it adds to Tudor’s problems with Micky van de Ven suspended, while Yves Bissouma has been ruled out.
Tudor also revealed Guglielmo Vicario will return to Liverpool, but praised Kinsky.
“He came back the day after and was very good in training,” Tudor said. “He has the strength and quality. In front of him is a very good career.”
