Tottenham’s Igor Tudor has given an interesting response amidst the criticism he has received for his treatment of Antonin Kinsky.
Kinsky’s Champions League debut ended in tears, with the goalkeeper being taken off in the 17th minute against Atletico Madrid after making two early mistakes.
The Czech shot-stopper’s removal did little to stop the home side’s march to a comfortable win, which has almost certainly knocked the Lilywhites out of the Champions League.
Tudor has already insisted that Kinsky will play again this season, and the interim Spurs boss has now explained why he decided to take him off.
Igor Tudor explains reason for controversial Tottenham decision
Tudor has been accused of destroying Kisnky’s career, with the 47-year-old receiving plenty of criticism for starting with the former Slavia Prague man before embarrassing him by taking him off early into the encounter.
However, the Croat has insisted that he was in a no-win situation with Kinsky once the goalkeeper had made two big errors.
Tudor said about substituting the goalkeeper (via Football.London): “When you make this decision to change, you always lose. When you do that substitution after 15 minutes, the coach loses in both cases. First case, because you put him in, so everyone says ‘why are you doing this? You killed the guy’.
“If you don’t, you are taking risk to concede one or two more goals, so I took the decision after thinking and if I needed to, I would do the same again. It was an act of helping to preserve the guy and to preserve the team.”
Tudor reveals why he did not comfort Antonin Kinsky
According to reports, Tudor’s failure to acknowledge Kinsky as he was coming off has not gone down well with the Tottenham squad, with many players having now lost faith in the interim boss.
However, the former Juventus head coach insisted that the right thing to do was to address the goalkeeper inside the dressing room.
Tudor added: “Why didn’t I go to give him a hug? Because maybe he was angry. Maybe coaches do things to avoid this scene and make a situation worse than it was.
“Sometimes it is better to stay there and we hugged each other at half-time. At half-time we spoke and nothing [more], the situation happened there. It finished there.”
Kinsky was back on the bench for Tottenham’s 1-1 draw at Liverpool earlier on Sunday with Richarlison’s late equaliser securing what could be a vital point in the battle against relegation.
Liverpool’s opening goal came from a Dominik Szoboszlai free-kick in which Vicario failed to save, having left too much space to his right and could only get a hand to the ball before it rippled into the net.
One thing is abundantly clear come the summer transfer window, Tottenham need a new first-choice goalkeeper who is consistently reliable if the club are serious about overhauling the squad should they avoid the drop.