Antonin Kinsky’s name has dominated the headlines in recent weeks after his UEFA Champions League debut for Tottenham Hotspur ended prematurely against Atletico Madrid.
The 22-year-old was chosen to start ahead of Guglielmo Vicario in Spain in what was supposed to be one of the biggest nights of his career.
However, he made two unbelievable errors that essentially cost Tottenham the tie in the opening exchanges as Igor Tudor opted to substitute him after just 17 minutes.
Kinsky went straight down the tunnel and was blanked by the Tottenham boss after his substitution. However, the likes of Joao Palhinha and Conor Gallagher were among the players who were seen comforting him after his nightmarish cameo.
And now, the Tottenham boss has finally revealed why he didn’t comfort Kinsky as the North London outfit prepare to visit Anfield to take on Liverpool later today.
Deliberate move to snub Kinsky: Tudor
Tudor made a big decision to bench Vicario for Kinsky and was forced to make another huge call 17 minutes into the game.
This time, he reacted quickly to restore Vicario between the sticks as Kinsky clearly endured the worst spell of his career.
While his goalkeeping change didn’t work out, Tudor explained why he decided to withdraw Kinsky, suggesting that it was a lose-lose situation as a manager.
“When you make this decision to change, you always lose. When you do that substitution after 15 minutes, the coach loses in both cases,” said Tudor in the embargoed section of his pre-Liverpool press conference.
“First case, because you put him in, so everyone says, ‘Why are you doing this? You killed the guy.”
Read More: Thibaut Courtois blames Atletico’s pitch for Kinsky nightmare – he’s absolutely spot on
“If you don’t, you are taking a risk to concede one or two more goals, so I made 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.
Moments later, he was asked by a journalist about why he didn’t comfort the young goalkeeper, who walked down the tunnel with his hands on his face after a sobering night in Spain.
“Why didn’t I go to give him a hug? Because maybe he was angry,” Tudor continued.
“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.”
Mountain out of a molehill
This is probably not going to go down well with the Tottenham fans, but there are far bigger problems to address at the moment.
Granted, Tudor hasn’t really done too many things right since replacing Thomas Frank at the helm, but all this clamour about his conduct during Kinsky’s substitution is both unnecessary and exaggerated.
Tottenham were 3-0 down at the time and Kinsky’s confidence was shot, so the manager’s focus at the time will have been to motivate his players to stay in the game.
Read More: David de Gea sends powerful message to Antonin Kinsky after Tottenham nightmare
In fact, Atletico looked imperious after going 3-0 up and the scoreline could’ve become seriously embarrassing, so the manager did the right thing by trying to save face.
Privately, he seems to have addressed the situation, but it’s about time they put this issue on the back burner and move on as the fight for Premier League safety continues.
