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The new Tottenham interim head coach has been speaking about his first game in charge against north London rivals Arsenal on Sunday
New Tottenham boss Igor Tudor believes it should always be a good time to play against Arsenal at home even if his new club are in an "emergency situation".
The Croatian has parachuted into Spurs in the wake of Thomas Frank's sacking, with the club down in 16th-place and just five points above the Premier League's drop zone. This is not new territory for Tudor as over the years he has gone into the likes of Juventus, Lazio and Udinese (twice) and immediately picked the clubs up and pushed them up the Serie A table.
Now he must work similar magic at Tottenham and his first game in the dugout will be Sunday afternoon's north London derby against table-topping Arsenal. Mikel Arteta's side have wobbled in recent weeks with just three Premier League wins in 2026 and if Manchester City beat Newcastle on Saturday night then the Gunners' lead at the summit will be down to just two points.
Tudor was asked whether it was a good time for Spurs to face their north London rivals amid their stuttering form and he had little time for his new club's poor record at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the past year.
"It’s always a good time to play against Arsenal at home," said the 47-year-old. "Good if you are not in a good moment, of course. If you are not in a good moment, of course. So let’s go. We respect them but we play at home. Let’s see what will happen.
"We need to have courage, confidence. We have good players, they have good players. So let’s see what will happen. Be humble but brave, intelligent. The right things to do to put in the pitch. We play at home, eh?"
The biggest opponent for Tudor will be the club's own continuous injury crisis with just 13 players fit to train in his first week at Hotspur Way and the former Juventus centre-back admits that any style of play he wants to bring will have to fit for now into what he has available in front of him.
"Style of play comes when you have 50 days in pre-season and you have 20 players. Of course when you have the style, very concrete, but now this is an emergency, an emergency situation when you need to find fast what suits the 10 plus three players and it’s totally different," he said.
“It’s also a problem because you cannot now go and say that you have five or six things that you want to achieve. One, two, three maybe. But you have to go day-by-day, week by week and now we go on that, we do something else, continue with this, continue with that and now maybe we are weaker on one side of our game, we work and improve on something. That’s how you build a team. It’s a process.
"But let’s see what we can do. If you ask me what we are going to see on Sunday then I believe something concrete, good that the people will like. But it’s also about working, doing your best and then you will see on Sunday."
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Tudor expects to have a couple of strikers in action but the derby this weekend will come too soon for right-back Pedro Porro.
"[Dominic Solanke] had some problems during the week with his throat. He has taken some antibiotics but he'll be available for the game," he said. "Richy is back. Tel was there. Others you already know. [Porro] no. Next week."
Due to the short-term nature currently of his appointment, the new boss is living out of a hotel and he dismissed any suggestion he might do some London sightseeing.
"This is a question I don’t need to answer. I come here not to visit the city, I have come here to do a job at a very difficult moment for this club," he said. "We work every day, like all coaches do. Every day. Focus on the work and live it 24/7. Even if you go to the restaurant or a museum, you are thinking about how to make the team play better. It’s a strange job."
After another week in which the term "Spursy" has been topical with Swedish politician Mikael Damberg using the word when analysing his nation's economic struggles and comparing them to the Premier League club, Tudor needed to have the expression explained to him and he quickly dismissed it.
"It’s not about that. It’s not about names. It’s other things in football and in life. It’s not about the names or sayings, whatever you call it, it’s not about tradition. It’s about here and here (points to head and heart)," he said. "It's not about legs. It’s about head, it’s about brain, it’s about heart. That is what it’s about.
"Until now, I saw interesting things [from this squad]. When I say [mentality] is most important, it’s a basic. Let’s say it like that. It’s a basic that you have these things. But we need to add also other things otherwise it’s not enough.
"So let’s start with this. After, pass by pass, we’ll add more things. I saw this position to react like this. It’s not easy, but in life all the good things are not easy. If somebody wants to become something more, it's never easy. This is the moment to react for each player and put themselves in the challenge to become something more."
Tudor is looking forward to experiencing his first north London derby in the flesh.
"On television, it’s a little bit different so I don’t know how it will be live," said the new Spurs boss. "It’s always a good game, always big motivation. It can be big energy, big everything."
The Croatian has no doubt that Spurs will "100 per cent" be a Premier League club next season and he was asked where that certainty comes from.
“The quality. What I saw this week is the quality of the players, we have enormous quality in the players even though some of them are not with us, but they will come back," he said. "On Sunday we will have 13 good players. It’s about that.
"I think I was very clear about what my goals are, that I focus on us. I will prepare the same way whether it is Arsenal or another team. It’s all about us. We need to become what we want to be. It's about that. Arsenal gives you bigger motivation, ok bigger quality of opponent, but also bigger motivation. So I hope we see concrete things on Sunday."
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