Spurs interim manager Igor Tudor searches for answers as Premier League slide continues

LONDON (AP) — The numbers tell an ugly story for Tottenham.

A five-game losing streak leaves Spurs just one point above the Premier League relegation zone. Zero domestic wins in 2026. They've allowed nine goals in three matches under new manager Igor Tudor.

“Still nine games to play,” the Croatian coach said after a 3-1 loss to Crystal Palace on Thursday night.

Tudor says he “saw something” in his team's performance that gives him belief for the rest of the Premier League season. Plenty of Spurs fans had seen enough, though, as many left Tottenham Hotspur Stadium long before the final whistle.

Spurs led on striker Dominic Solanke's goal but fell apart after captain Micky van de Ven was sent off for pulling down Ismaila Sarr. Palace then netted three times before halftime.

Tudor was hired on Valentine's Day following the firing of Thomas Frank, who lasted eight months on the job. Tudor was given a contract to the end of the season.

Would Spurs' front office make another change so quickly?

“I don’t think in that direction. I have my job to do and that’s all," Tudor said.

Asked if he'd be in the manager's seat again, he responded: “No comment on that question.”

Tottenham's announcement on Feb. 14 said Tudor's task was “to improve performances, deliver results and move us up the Premier League table.”

Thursday's loss extended Spurs' Premier League winless slide to 11 games. It also extended an unwanted personal streak for Tudor. He was fired by Juventus last October following three straight losses as part of an eight-match winless run.

Tottenham's only victories (two) in 2026 have come in the Champions League, and that's the stage for Spurs' next game — at Atletico Madrid in the first leg of the round of 16 on Tuesday.

Their next Premier League game is at Liverpool on March 15.

Solanke told the club's in-house media that the players understand the assignment.

“We've had a little chat between us, and we need to understand that we need to improve — and we need to improve now,” he said post-game. “It's obviously hard to say just with words — we need to show it on the pitch.

“We need to obviously see what's going wrong on the pitch, debrief that and see what we can change, but we’re not in a position to dwell on anything right now,” he added. "We need to make sure that next game, we’re going to be at it, see how we can improve and see what we can do to change this form around.”

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Crystal Palace's Jorgen Strand Larsen celebrates scoring their second goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace in London, Thursday March 5, 2026. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Tottenham Hotspur's Pape Matar Sarr reacts after the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace in London, Thursday March 5, 2026. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Tottenham Hotspur manager Igor Tudor reacts on the touchline during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace in London, Thursday March 5, 2026. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Tottenham Hotspur manager Igor Tudor reacts on the touchline during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace in London, Thursday March 5, 2026. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Remarks by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the American press emphasizes U.S. casualties in the Iran war because it “wants to make the president look bad” are a reminder of something that has endured across many decades and conflicts: the tension and trepidation about news that reminds Americans of the human cost of war.

During his Pentagon briefing on the war on Wednesday, Hegseth bashed “fake news” while addressing the six U.S. Army reservists killed in an Iranian attack on an operations center in Kuwait.

“When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news,” Hegseth said. “I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad. But try for once to report the reality. The terms of this war will be set by us at every step.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when questioned about the remark by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at her own news conference later, doubled down. “You take every single thing this administration says and try to use it to make the president look bad,” Leavitt said. “That’s an objective fact.”

Memories of night after night of graphic images beamed into homes through a then-recent invention — television — were hard to shake for those who lived through the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Many believed the cumulative impact of seeing that suffering night after night turned Americans from supporters to skeptics.

Such vivid, intimate scenes of military action by Americans haven't been seen to that extent since, a legacy still in place with the war that President Donald Trump and Hegseth are waging right now on behalf of the United States.

“For many presidents, the lesson seemed to be: Don't allow the realities of war into people's living rooms if you can help it,” said Timothy Naftali, senior research scholar at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

Today, the images the public sees of warfare can resemble a video game — explosions seen lighting up the sky from afar — with the pain much more private.

Generations ago during World War II, journalists were embedded with the military, and many became household names — reporters Ernie Pyle and Walter Cronkite, photographers Robert Capa and Margaret Bourke-White. Those were the days before television, however.

Vietnam was arguably the most accessible American war for reporters. Journalists stationed in the country sent back a steady stream of death and destruction.

Cronkite, by then a CBS-TV anchorman of the most popular evening news program in the U.S., reported from Vietnam in 1968 and concluded the only rational way out was a negotiated peace. “If I’ve lost Cronkite,” President Lyndon Johnson said, “I’ve lost Middle America.”

During the Gulf War in 1991, President George H.W. Bush was angered by split-screen television images that showed the coffins of U.S. service members being returned to the United States while he, apparently unaware of the timing, was joking with reporters about another subject at the White House. The Pentagon banned coverage of these ceremonies, saying it was to protect the privacy of family members of the dead, although critics said it was to avoid showing pictures of coffins.

That ban, with a few exceptions, stayed in place until it was lifted by President Barack Obama in 2009.

Reporters who approached the battlefield in wars fought by the U.S. military in the 2000s were likely to have their movements restricted, if they were allowed at all. Jessica Donati, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters who covered the war in Afghanistan, wrote for the Modern War Institute in 2021 that “it’s easier these days for journalists in Afghanistan to embed with the Taliban than with the U.S. military.”

The nature of this war — fought thousands of miles from the American homeland and not yet on the ground in Iran — has limited the number of American casualties and thus made them more newsworthy. Several journalists have pointed out that reporting about military casualties predates Trump's presidency. Hegseth's statement “is a warped way of looking at the world,” said CNN's Jake Tapper. “Ahistorical.”

“The news media covers fallen service members because they have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country,” he said. “It's a tribute. It's an honor.”

There has been relatively little coverage from the ground in Iran. A CNN team led by Frederik Pleitgen on Thursday became the first journalists from a U.S.-based television network to enter the country, and he spent the day racing across the country to Tehran.

Dan Lamothe, military affairs reporter for The Washington Post, posted on social media that Hegseth's comments won't stop him from continuing to cover the casualties of war — as has been done under presidents of both major political parties.

“These efforts haven’t always been perfect,” Lamothe wrote. “But they’ve highlighted sacrifices by American servicemembers and their families, and shortcomings that sometimes allowed these deaths to happen. We’ll continue to do so. It’s too important to stop.”

When Robert H. Reid was a top editor at Stars and Stripes between 2014 and 2025, he found that the newspaper's audience, primarily service members, wanted more than raw numbers when Americans were killed in military action. They wanted to know details about the lives of the people who served — where they grew up, who they left behind, what their passions were, he said.

In 10 or 20 years, many of these people will be forgotten by all but those who loved them. But for what they gave for their country, they deserve recognition for their lives, said Reid, an Associated Press international correspondent for most of his career.

“The public needs to know that war is not a video game,” Naftali said. “It affects people.”

This story has been corrected to show Obama lifted the Pentagon ban in 2009, not 2019.

David Bauder writes about the media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon, Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Konstantin Toropin)