Tottenham Hotspur manager Igor Tudor has issued a stark warning to his players ahead of their crucial Premier League clash with Liverpool, telling them they must choose to 'cry or fight' as relegation fears intensify. The North London side sit 16th, just one point above the drop zone, after a dismal run of form that saw Thomas Frank sacked and Tudor appointed, only for the Croatian to lose all four of his matches in charge.
Tudor, speaking in his pre-match press conference, did not mince words when addressing the team's plight. "Not an easy situation, not an easy moment. Big challenge to change things," he said. "Like everything in life, you can choose how to see the situation. You can cry or you can fight. You can be the victim or you can change something. This is the message I communicated to the players."
The former Juventus and Marseille boss acknowledged the severity of the situation, adding: "The bottle is either half empty or half full. Here there is nothing full, there are a lot of empty things. But difficult moments don't last forever. It will pass." Spurs come into the Liverpool game on the back of a humbling 5-2 defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, further compounding their woes.
Tudor urged his squad to take responsibility and show courage. "In the last period, a lot of things were said about what is wrong with the club, the problems, that no one can do anything like we were victims. I said this morning to the players totally opposite things. We are the team and we are the staff. It's all about us," he said.
After facing Liverpool, Tottenham travel to Atletico for the second leg before a potentially decisive home match against Nottingham Forest, who sit just one point behind them in 17th. That game could go a long way to determining whether Spurs will be playing in the Championship next season.
