Opinion: Tanguy Ndombele: Talent With No Conviction

In the summer of 2019, Tottenham Hotspur had just fallen short of Champions League glory after a memorable campaign consisting of a squad that hadn’t seen any new additions for a whole season.

With manager Mauricio Pochettino demanding investment to invigorate his squad, Daniel Levy dipped into his pockets, brandishing a young and exciting Ryan Sessegnon, creative midfielder Giovani Lo Celso, and the pick of the bunch? Lyon midfielder and club record signing, Tanguy Ndombele.

Fast forward five years and Spurs have seen four permanent and two interim managers, club legend Harry Kane leave and now, Tanguy Ndombele, the club’s record signing reportedly edging closer to departing the club. Ask a Tottenham fan five years ago how they think Ndombele would be departing the club, many would be suggesting moves to European heavyweights such as Real Madrid and Manchester City. The reality – Ndombele will be departing for not a single penny, leaving the Frenchman essentially in the football wilderness.

So how did we reach the point of a £63 million player leaving the door for free and practically nothing to show for his five-year period at the club? It can sometimes be hard to perceive it now with Ndombele gaining a reputation for struggling for minutes at every loan he has with consistent question marks over the player’s attitude & effort, but Tanguy was once one of football’s hottest prospects.

Ndombele’s name was essentially made in the 2018/19 Champions League campaign where the tricky midfielder caught the attention of clubs all around the world for his mesmerizing skills often used to drag himself out of tight spaces before playing a killer creative ball for his forwards. The most notable game of that breakthrough European campaign was Lyon’s tie against Manchester City.

The 22-year-old midfielder had bossed the stage so much that it almost immediately rocketed him to the very top of most club’s shopping lists for the summer with the reported biggest admirers other than Tottenham being that night’s opponents and Premier League champions, Manchester City. (Manchester Evening News)

Come the summer however and it appeared as though Tottenham had already started to put the wheels in motion to secure Ndombele’s signature. Spurs had just lost cult hero and highly rated technical midfielder, Mousa Dembele in January and Ndombele looked to be the ideal replacement for the Belgian, with Ndombele possessing the strength, skill & creativity much like Dembele had. Upon face value the two players possessed such a similar skill set, that was and still is incredibly hard to come by that Daniel Levy deemed Ndombele that vital to sign that he grumbled on in negotiations with the notoriously hard dealers that are Olympique Lyon, with Levy himself hardly being a frivolous owner too, it was no surprise that the saga grumbled on for months.

However, on the 2nd of July 2019 Spurs had their man. For a club record £63 million, it was widely seen as a coo for the club, a statement signing. Tottenham for the first time perhaps since the capture of Jurgen Klinsmann in 1994 that Tottenham had secured the services of a player who was widely desired and had even flexed their financial muscles to make sure it would be Lilywhite that Ndombele would play in for the coming seasons.

After the first game of the season, it seemed as though the club and its fans had every reason to be excited too, Ndombele netted on his Premier League debut in a home victory over newly promoted Aston Villa. It felt as though Tottenham really could have just signed one of football’s most exciting prospects, just as they were about to near their peak.

Ndombele’s technical ability was absolutely undeniable. The Frenchman had fans on their feet on a regular basis when he did play, deploying roulettes and step-overs in the middle of the park to get out of situations that almost every other player would be dispossessed from.

Tottenham’s frustrations in the season were then reflected through Ndombele and his injury record in the 2019/20 season, suffering reoccurring groin injuries throughout the winter period of the season where Spurs suffered a torrid period of form, being torn apart 7-2 at home against Bayern Munich, losing days later 3-0 to a bottom half Brighton side, the run saw Mauricio Pochettino, the manager who signed Ndombele, leave just months into the season. (TransferMarkt)

Jose Mourinho was then tasked with trying to obtain the fitness and form of the player who the club had gone all out for in the summer. In typical Mourinho fashion, as soon as he perceived Tanguy wasn’t responding the desired way, verbal arrows were shot in his direction.

An away draw to Burnley off the back of back-to-back losses had Mourinho already under fire and the Portuguese manager was quick to point the finger of blame at Ndombele, stating ‘a player with his potential has to be giving us more than he is giving us’, going on to bluntly exclaim ‘he has to do better’. (Reuters)

Unfortunately for Ndombele and the club, this back and forth between Mourinho and Ndombele rumbled on until Jose’s eventual sacking.

It felt as though the relationship may never be void of drama or controversy, with the case in point being the unprecedented lockdown break, where teams were forced to train remotely and human contact was limited by the government. Mourinho, however, felt that Ndombele’s training issues were so pressing that he would disregard such government guidance.

The press snapped Mourinho and Ndombele’s one-on-one session and the manager became pressured to apologise for the situation, admitting ‘I accept my actions were not in line with government protocol’ (Sky Sports). Although fans were perhaps pleased to see that Ndombele was becoming more determined to perform under Mourinho, the manner in which the session was done only infuriated fans and the wider public who were making their own sacrifices while the Tottenham pair were breaking the guidance.

There was however a period in his tenureship when it started to seem as though two had swiped aside their differences for the greater good of the team, it led to what is widely deemed as Tanguy’s best spell in a Spurs shirt at the start of the 2020/21 season. Mourinho’s Tottenham pulled apart Manchester United 7-2 at Old Trafford, brushed aside Southampton in a 5-2 win and also defeated Manchester City 2-0 all within the season’s opening months, and Ndombele was key to each victory.

The most notable moment for the Frenchman though was a stunning goal against Sheffield United where Spurs ran out as 3-1 winners, with Ndombele’s opener encapsulating the magic that he possessed on a football pitch, looping a shot from the far left-hand side of the box over the opposition goalkeeper with his first touch, doing so with outside of his boot.

It’s a goal that sums up Ndombele’s career – moments – ever since joining from Lyon five years ago, Ndombele has displayed moments of brilliance that many fans lapped up, being swooped back upon the train of believers who had faith that Tanguy would come good. All for it to just reach the same conclusion, disappointment.

Despite Mourinho’s departure towards the end of the 2020/21 season, there was not a true new start for Ndombele. Mourinho’s words of Ndombele having talent that was ‘second to nobody’ (Football.London) were echoed by the new Portuguese Spurs coach, Nuno Espírito Santo, with him stating that ‘my job here is not to convince players to play for Tottenham Hotspur’ and that ‘to take the best out of Tanguy, it has to come from himself’. (Standard)

Nuno clearly didn’t feel Ndombele was doing enough to lure his full potential out of himself, only rewarding him a full ninety minutes once in his short time in charge, often substituting him just after an hour or giving him odd minutes off of the bench.

After Nuno’s dismissal from his managerial post, it was Antonio Conte’s turn to try and steer the Spurs ship back on track. It didn’t take long for Ndombele to be thrown overboard.

Following two months of mostly warming the bench under the Italian, a home fixture against third-tier side, Morecambe, in the FA Cup served Ndombele a final roll of the dice.

It was an audition that Ndombele may as well not have turned up to, putting in an incredibly lacklustre display as Spurs incredibly fell behind, taking 74 minutes to merely draw the game level.

The quality of Ndombele’s performance was frustratingly familiar for fans but it was his attitude upon being substituted after 69 minutes that hammered the nail in his Tottenham career coffin. The Frenchman’s casual stroll off the far side of the pitch induced deafening boos from the fans that had so much hope in Ndombele when he joined merely three years prior. Tanguy’s careless walk wasted valuable time in a crucial knockout game for Spurs, cementing people’s beliefs that the midfielder didn’t care about the club or even the sport itself. Ndombele didn’t play a competitive minute for Tottenham again.

Spurs loaned Ndombele back to the club they paid £63 million for Tanguy’s services only three seasons ago, Lyon, making only six league starts back in his home country (TransferMarkt). It was truly starting to feel as though no matter how comfortable or difficult a time a manager or club would make Ndombele feel, he would never be motivated enough to excel to the level that he once promised.

Despite being on Tottenham’s books for the next two seasons, Ndombele hardly touched the training pitches at Hotspur Way, leaving in 2022/23 to Napoli, where he did become a Serie A winner with the Naples side, despite making near to no contribution to the team’s success, making 30 features for Napoli in the league with 22 of them being off of the bench. (TransferMarkt)

Current manager, Ange Postecoglou, also expressed a lack of patience for Ndombele after a brief pre-season with the player, sending him on a third successive loan, this time to Turkey; the lowest level of football he had been sent to out of his three expeditions outside Spurs, it perhaps though, went the worst of the three.

Ndombele only featured 26 times for Galatasary in all competitions, with only 4 of those outings being not from the bench (TransferMarkt). The Turkish side clearly, like his previous clubs, ran short of tolerance for Ndombele’s effort despite his clear talent with the now 27-year-old only featuring for five minutes in the team’s closing eight league games.

Now, Ndombele is left without a club following his unsuccessful loans and attempts to be reintegrated with the Tottenham team as the club announced that they had reached a ‘mutual termination’ of Ndombele’s initial six-year deal. (Tottenham Hotspur)

Spurs fans who have experienced the rollercoaster of a career that Ndombele has had with the club will now be left bewildered at what the former £63 million valued midfielder will do next. How low will Ndombele go for regular game time? Who can afford his wages? Will anyone be brave enough to take the risk on him? As far as many fans are concerned, it is simply not their problem now.

It was a player who had a career in lilywhite that promised to be so much more, now left to be characterised by lockdown training sessions, years of failed loans and one, long, lonely walk against Morecambe.