The fear for those of us who love watching Tanguy Ndombele play is this: we have already seen his last appearance in a Tottenham shirt, even if we did not know it.
It was 16 minutes off the bench in that miserable 2-1 home defeat by Aston Villa on May 19, a night that will always be remembered for the vocal anti-ENIC protests after the final whistle and Harry Kane’s long goodbye to the Spurs fans afterwards. It already feels like a night from another era.
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For Ndombele’s last Tottenham start, and the turning point in his brief Tottenham career, you have to go back to April 21. This was Ryan Mason’s first game in charge, a 2-1 comeback win against Southampton, the day after the Super League collapsed. Spurs were good that day but Ndombele was not, looking very much like he was playing within himself to preserve his energy for the League Cup final four days later. He was eventually taken off for Harry Winks.
Mason has always been a huge admirer of Ndombele as a player but when he picked the team for the final, he put in Winks and left Ndombele on the bench. The decision backfired in more ways than one. First, Spurs had no way to play through City’s press and were crying out for a player who could take the ball under pressure and move it forward. Tottenham barely got out of their own half and lost 1-0.
But Ndombele was also crestfallen to be dropped for the final. This would have been the biggest game of his career — his first major final and his first game at Wembley. And he had to watch it from the bench. Mason made four changes as he attempted to open up the game, bringing on Gareth Bale, Moussa Sissoko, Dele Alli and Steven Bergwijn, but not Ndombele.
For Ndombele, this was immensely painful. He has always seen himself as a big-game player who comes alive on the grandest stages. It was his display for Lyon against Manchester City in the Champions League in 2018, remember, that alerted the world to his talent. And now he had been sidelined for a huge game when he was desperate to make the difference.
The result was that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Ndombele’s head dropped. He was so upset to miss the final that it affected his performances in training. Ndombele could give Mason no real reason to put him back in the side.
It was a miserable end to the season for Ndombele, compounded by missing out on Didier Deschamps’ squad for Euro 2020 despite starting in a World Cup qualifier for France during the March break. It has led to Ndombele asking to leave Tottenham, with the player believing that he can get a move to a team as big as Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich. This, in turn, has led Nuno Espirito Santo to exclude him from the team and even the bench for all of Spurs’ games so far this season. Nuno does not want to pick a player who doesn’t want to be there — although he has not applied that same stance on Kane.
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Whether Ndombele can actually get a move to one of Europe’s biggest teams in the last week of the transfer window remains to be seen. But Spurs are certainly trying to find someone to take him. Fabio Paratici is hoping to engineer a swap deal this week to get Ndombele’s £200,000-per-week wages off the books and plug one of the remaining gaps in Spurs’ squad.
In one sense, it would be a success for Paratici to find a new home for Ndombele so late in the window. This has not been an easy summer for clubs to get rid of highly paid players. Just look at Manchester City or Manchester United’s struggles to move on players no longer in their first team. The financial crisis at the top end of European football means that practically nobody other than City, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain has any money to spend. If Paratici can find a creative solution it will be a testament to his imagination and hard work.
But if Ndombele leaves then many people will be left with a sense of frustration and loss. He is a uniquely gifted footballer whose footwork, balance, timing and brilliance allow him to do things with the ball few would even dream of. He has produced moments — such as his hooked finish at Sheffield United — that remind you of the thrill of being surprised by football.
Nobody.
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) January 17, 2021
Absolutely no one.
Tanguy Ndombele… #THFC ⚪️ #COYS pic.twitter.com/5Qo6EMrtQK
Yet as exciting as Ndombele can be at his best, no one could argue that Tottenham fans have seen anything like the best of him. There have been incredible moments, a spin or a turn or a perfectly-weighted pass, but he has rarely dominated or run games, struggled to put a long run of good form together, and never looked like the consistent world-beater Tottenham thought they were buying when they paid Lyon £55 million two years ago.
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To see Ndombele leave Tottenham this week without having reached anywhere like the limits of his potential would certainly feel like a let-down, a huge missed opportunity for the club. There are plenty of fans out there who love Ndombele’s unique style, and who would want to see him get one more chance at Spurs. He joined at a difficult moment, the argument goes, and he just needs one stable season to show his best.
An alternative view is that Ndombele is 24 years old and has been at Tottenham for two years now. He can no longer claim to be at a transitional phase of his career. Nuno is the fourth manager in a row to have questions about Ndombele’s application, fitness or discipline. At what point does Ndombele have to take responsibility? And if he has decided he no longer wants to play for Spurs, why should anyone at the club compromise to fit him in?
Maybe no new club will be found for Ndombele this week. Maybe he will be reintegrated into Nuno’s team and give them that spark of midfield creativity they have lacked. Maybe this difficult period will go down as a turning point in Ndombele’s career, the moment he realised what he needed to do to make it at Tottenham. Or maybe not.
Right now this feels like an ending and a disappointing one at that. Players like Ndombele do not come along very often. When Tottenham signed him it was almost impossible not to be thrilled by how talented he was and the vast possibilities of what he might achieve. Two years on, he has only shown glimmers. Whoever you blame for that, everyone has lost out because of it.
(Top photo: Tottenham Hotspur FC/Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images)
