Tottenham stance on sacking Igor Tudor revealed after Atletico Madrid defeat

Under-fire interim Tottenham manager Igor Tudor appears to have been given a reprieve and has avoided the sack despite last night’s catastrophic defeat against Atletico Madrid.

The former Juventus and Lazio boss was hired last month following the decision to part company with Thomas Frank, who himself lasted just eight months at the helm.

Tudor arrived with Spurs on the brink of being sucked into a relegation dogfight but, after overseeing three successive defeats, his confidence-starved side are now just one point above the drop zone.

The Croatian’s tenure started with a crushing 4-1 home defeat to Arsenal in the north London derby and Tottenham’s plight worsened following a 2-1 reversal at Fulham.

Without any semblance of a new manager bounce in evidence, Spurs fans were already sensing their club’s board had made a terrible mistake and those fears were underlined by last week’s astonishing capitulation at home to Crystal Palace.

Any hope that a break from domestic action and a return to the Champions League would trigger a change of fortunes proved unfounded and a looked likely to represent the final straw.

Despite mounting calls for him to be relieved of his duties, Tudor looks set to fight another day with Sky Sports News reporting he will take the club’s pre-match press conference on Friday ahead of this weekend’s daunting trip to Anfield.

A depleted Spurs team will already be without the suspended Micky van de Ven, while there are doubts over the fitness of Cristian Romero and Joao Paulinha after both were forced off late on in Madrid following a worrying clash of heads.

Tudor must also decide who to play in goal after his decision to hand rookie Antonin Kinsky a Champions League debut spectacularly backfired in the space of 17 astonishing minutes.

After two calamitous errors gifted goals to Marcos Llorente and Julian Alvarez, Tudor was forced to bite the bullet and substitute the young shot stopper.

‘He’s [Igor Tudor] making decisions that he maybe thinks is going to one, keep him in a job, or two, keep Tottenham in the Premier League and performances are going to turn around,’ said former Spurs No.1 Paul Robinson.

‘It was a very selfish decision [to substitute Antonin Kinsky in the 17th minute] as a manager.

‘Actually, when you rewind the clock, I think he brought Kinsky in tonight because [Guglielmo] Vicario has been poor.

‘Vicario has made errors that have led to goals and he has cost Tottenham points in the league, of late.

‘I think he brought Kinsky in tonight thinking that if he does well I have got an excuse to keep him in now until the end of the season.

‘He reverted on that decision very, very early on in the game. I have never seen that in my playing career, in my broadcasting career, I have never seen a manager substitute a goalkeeper so obviously because of the mistakes that he made.

‘It’s quite blatantly for self preservation by the manager because it was a decision that he thought was best for him and his team at the time, without consideration for the young goalkeeper.’