Joke's on Spurs in comedy of errors

Outclassed, outplayed and outfought, Tottenham produced the kind of performance that earns managers the sack and leaves fans wondering why they wasted so much money to follow their team in Europe.

Shambolic, abject, spineless. Whichever adjective you choose to describe this display, it will not do justice to quite how poor they were.

Fans whose club have been the butt of jokes all week are already asking how Juande Ramos continues to survive when his players no longer appear to be giving everything for him and they are also questioning when chairman Daniel Levy will take decisive action to address the severity of their plight.

Spurs insist Ramos is safe and that they believe in him, but for how much longer can they ignore the evidence before them?

No matter how much the Spurs hierarchy talk up Ramos's qualities, the hard facts are these: Spurs are bottom of the Premier League after making the worst start to a domestic season in their 126-year history, and they have won just two of their 12 matches in all competitions this term.

Worse still, the players appear to have lost their nerve and their self-discipline. Even after his poor control of Benoit Assou-Ekotto's back pass had let in Fabio Quagliarella, goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes had no need to shove the Udinese striker, who had his back to goal, to the ground.

Instead, the Brazilian conceded a penalty which Antonio Di Natale dispatched to put his team 1-0 up after 23 minutes.

Things got even worse just before the hour when Jamie O'Hara was booked twice in two minutes for a couple of ludicrous fouls on Alexis Sanchez. That saw the midfielder become the third Spurs player in two games to be dismissed after Gareth Bale and Michael Dawson saw red in last Sunday's 2-1 defeat at Stoke.

After every Spurs defeat this season, it always seems as though they have touched rock bottom. But in the next game, they seem to outdo themselves by playing even worse.

Ramos's management is increasingly perplexing. His decision to drop David Bentley from the 18-man squad came after the midfielder, signed for £16million from Blackburn in the summer, had said yesterday Spurs "didn't know what they were doing" in the early weeks of the campaign.

Ramos said he was not aware of Bentley's words, while the player, who has lost his place in the England squad since his move to White Hart Lane, spent the game sitting with the substitutes before heading straight for the team bus at the final whistle, opting not to speak to waiting reporters.

Ramos said: "I chose these 18 players from the 20 who were in the squad. I do not know what happened before this match [with Bentley's interview]. His reaction to being dropped was normal, the same as any other player told he was not playing. I am very angry, because I do not like to lose."

To his credit, Ramos always fronts up to the media, rather than sending one of his backroom team to explain the latest defeat. The same cannot be said of his chairman.

Indeed, Spurs fans wondering what is Levy's verdict on the shambles may have to wait until next month's Annual General Meeting, because the chairman rarely gives interviews.

Now, rather than Ramos, it is hapless sporting director Damien Comolli who finds himself likely to be sacked for his confused transfer dealings, which led to Dimitar Berbatov, Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe leaving the club without being replaced by players who are in their class.

But Levy, on business in the United States, is likely to learn the fury of the fans during Sunday's home game against Bolton, even though a planned fans' protest has now been postponed.

A win, or at least a brave performance, against Udinese would have eased the tension, but there was neither as Serie A's second-placed side overwhelmed Spurs.

The rot started when Gomes failed to trap Assou-Ekotto's back pass before bundling Quagliarella to the floor.

The Brazilian could do nothing about Di Natale's penalty, which was drilled low to his right, and after that there was only going to be one winner. Spurs needed 84 minutes to force Samir Handanovic into a serious save, the Udinese goalkeeper clawing away Darren Bent's header from Giovani Dos Santos' cross.

Udinese sealed a comfortable win when substitute Simone Pepe beat Gomes from close range in the 87th minute after a precise counter-attack.

Di Natale had said before this match that not one of the Spurs players would find a place in Udinese's first team, and anyone who had not seen Ramos's side this season would have thought the Neapolitan was playing a dangerous game.

But after watching Di Natale and his team-mates destroy Spurs, those at the Stadio Friuli were left to reflect on just how right he was.