Arsenal’s rivals Tottenham Hotspur are all set to appoint Igor Tudor as their interim manager until the end of the season.
Spurs sacked Thomas Frank just eight months after he was given the role. The Dane didn’t do a great job there, and the club’s hierarchy felt that a change was needed.
Tudor is said to have reached a verbal agreement to take charge of Tottenham until the end of the season, and his first game will be the North London Derby.
Arsenal have never faced a team managed by Tudor before, but the Croatian does have some history with a former Gunners player – Nuno Tavares.
If you were Mikel Arteta, what would you be thinking before facing Tottenham now that Thomas Frank is gone?
Igor Tudor once ‘kicked out’ ex-Arsenal star Nuno Tavares from training
Arsenal signed Tavares from Benfica in the summer of 2021, but he was only a part of the squad for one season.
After a disastrous second half of his debut campaign, the left-back was sent out on loan to Marseille in Ligue 1.
That is where Tavares worked under Tudor, and he had a phenomenal start to life at the Stade Velodrome.
However, things quickly changed at the turn of the year, and the then-Arsenal loanee’s form fell off a cliff.
That reflected in training sessions as well, which made Tudor furious.
L’Equipe revealed in April 2023, as translated by The Mirror, that the then-Marseille boss ‘kicked out’ Tavares from a training session because he wasn’t running enough.
Tudor didn’t name anybody when asked about the incident, but he said: “In my football, there is a feature, you have to run. And if you don’t…
“If I see one player that doesn’t run in training, I’ll say it once, twice and then on the third time of asking, I’ll intervene.”
Send us your early North London Derby score predictions, how bold are you feeling?
Igor Tudor’s style of play could benefit Arsenal when they face Tottenham
Tudor is a good manager, but his style of play has never been flawless.
Across his time at Marseille, Juventus and Lazio, the Croatian preferred to use a 3-4-2-1 system. That typically leaves just two players in central midfield.
Tottenham have decent midfielders, but it must be said that none of their partnerships are capable of dominating the middle of the park on their own.
To make things worse for Spurs in the North London Derby, they will come up against a pairing of Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi, who have dominated the best midfields in the country already this season.
If Tudor sticks to his philosophy and uses just two midfielders against Arsenal, we think the Gunners will get the better of them without breaking a sweat.
Receive a digest of our best Arsenal content each week direct to your mailbox
