Tottenham are sinking in a sea of venom. Relegation is no longer a distant prospect for the owners of the finest stadium in the country. They have rolled the dice, replacing Thomas Frank with a bewildered Igor Tudor, but their flaws are starting to look overwhelming and lie only a point above the bottom three after their complete lack of unity and cohesion was exposed in this shambolic defeat to Crystal Palace.
This is getting all too real. Tottenham have lost all three of their games since appointing Tudor as their interim manager and are not coping with the pressure. Nottingham Forest and a resurgent West Ham are hot on their heels but Tottenham have frozen. They are winless since the turn of the year and could not even kick on after going 1-0 up against Palace.
It was the cue for an implosion. Micky van de Ven was soon sent off for fouling Ismaïla Sarr and will miss the trip to Anfield next weekend. Tottenham were gutless. Down to 10 men, they collapsed before half-time, conceding three in the space of 11 minutes to turn the atmosphere toxic and allow Palace to secure a win that surely secures their Premier League place for another season.
Tudor changed the system more out of hope than expectation. The clunky 4-4-2 from the defeat to Fulham was out. Conor Gallagher, Xavi Simons and Yves Bissouma dropped to the bench and Radu Dragusin was not even worthy of a place in the squad. Would this low-level shock therapy be enough? Tudor opted for a deep 3-4-3 formation, with Archie Gray and Souza as the wing-backs, and it took Tottenham a while to find their bearings. They were under plenty of aerial pressure during the early stages and could have fallen behind inside the opening minute, only for Guglielmo Vicario to react well to a sharp shot from Adam Wharton.
