In his first press conference as Tottenham Hotspur manager, Igor Tudor said he was 100-per-cent confident that Spurs would avoid relegation. Ten days later, the mood has changed.Â
Back-to-back defeats in Tudor's first two games in charge against Fulham and Arsenal have forced a change of tune from the Croatian boss.
"We lack when we attack. We are lacking the quality to score the goal. We are lacking in the middle to run. We are lacking behind to stay there and suffer and not concede the goal. An amazing situation, " said Tudor after Spurs' latest lost to Fulham.
Barring defending, attacking and running - there's little else you can do on a football pitch. Tudor's assessment paints a poor picture.
Spurs' new head coach - once excited about the challenge before him - has seen the true reality of his team after two games. Here are the numbers which show it...
Tottenham are on a run of 10 Premier League games without a victory and there is a real lack of winning feeling at the club.
In fact, Spurs did not take the lead in any league match in February. The last time they led in the top flight was during a seven-minute spell at Burnley on January 24.
There is a lack of fluency in attack, partly due to Spurs' inability to be consistent the ball.
Across Spurs' 10 matches since the turn of the year, they rank bottom in the Premier League for both being dispossessed on the ball and overall losses of possession.
"Look at the patterns of play Fulham had," said former Spurs boss Tim Sherwood to Your Site. "They had people in the correct positions to open up the pitch.
"Players were wide, balancing off, strikers up front and players in support - it was the opposite of what Tottenham had."
Since the turn of the year, only 35 per cent of Tottenham's possession sequences reach the final third of the pitch - only the bottom two teams in Wolves and Burnley have a lower percentage.
Essentially, Spurs really struggle to get the ball close to goal, playing like a bottom-three team in the process. So no wonder they cannot get into the lead, let alone hold onto it.
"You put the players [on the pitch], but then you lack defending, running and winning the duels. So what to do?"
In that sentence from his post-match complaints against Fulham, Tudor said his team lacked the ability to compete in the duels once they crossed the white line, leaving the coaching staff helpless.
"Football is a sport of running and duels," he added. "I have a sensation that Fulham players always arrived before. Even with the brain, they arrived before us. We are always late."
In the first half, which saw Fulham race into a 2-0 lead, Spurs won just 40 per cent of the duels in the match. They were overrun by Marco Silva's side - the story of their season.
Spurs rank bottom in the Premier League for aerial duels won - and since the turn of the year have lost more duels than any other team.
But there is also a self-inflicted nature to Tottenham's defensive play. They have made a league-high five errors leading to a goal in 2026. On top of that, no Premier League team has made more errors leading to a shot this calendar year.
That has seen Spurs concede the highest expected-goals figure in the Premier League this year, so the prospect of keeping clean sheets becomes much, much harder.
Before the weekend just gone, Spurs had been outrun by each of their last five Premier League opponents.
At Fulham, Spurs covered more ground than they have managed in any Premier League match this season - but that was still not enough for Tudor. "We are lacking in the middle to run," he said after the game.
"It's a load of nonsense about who runs more," said Sherwood to Sky. "It's about when you run, how you run and when you stand still."
This is perhaps not a criticism of the Spurs team - but of the situation they find themselves in. Tudor's comments about his team's lack of ability to run are not a surprise given the way he described Spurs' poor physical condition earlier in the week.
"Physically, I believe, we are not in an amazing situation," he said. "They have played lots of games in the last period without lots of players available and it made the physical condition of the team drop down.
"They are fatigued. To press high you need to be fit, but all of them, because if one person is not in the right shape there is a problem because someone is coming late. And the second thing, is that there is the other goal to protect.
"It is easy to run there but you need to run back, so if you run up and don't run back it's a problem."
It won't get any easier for Spurs physically, given the Champions League returns next week and the toll on the team's legs will rise.
