Player Watch - Tanguy Ndombele

-Afri-Coy- said:

Just a slight reminder that he wears the shirt and at the least, deserves the level of respect that comes with it in here.

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he doesn't respect the shirt though does he keeping fit is the least we should get for our 200k a week...

shouldve been a rather large red flag from day one that we got a pretty much free run at signing him, no other clubs held a serious interest. dont get me wrong he's an unbelievably talented player, but without the application and attitude to go with it he'll never establish himself at the very top, such a frustrating situation and one that seems to arise far too often with tanguy

DiVaio said:

I see someone saying this every day on Twitter. When Poch was here he missed 2 games because injury, wasn't in squad against Colchester as it was mostly reserve squad but he started 11 of 14 matches he played. Yeah, Mourinho didn't like him at first but in 20/21 he was one of the most used player under him. It's really too soon to say this about Nuno either

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I'm sure we both share the same hope that he can turn things around and become the player the vast majority of this forum thinks he can be, but I think that's a slightly generous version of events too tbh.

It was widely and reliably reported that Ndombele wanted to leave after like a month of Poch's training the first summer he arrived which doesn't exactly bode well for his mentality and when it came to playing he rarely made it through 90 mins (although I'll accept that the diamond formation Poch was trying didn't work and put a lot of pressure on the wider CMs to be everywhere).

Under Jose, he was barely used at the start because of again very widely reported fitness concerns. He then had his best spell with us (imo) earlier this season until Christmas but he was getting started as a number 10 because Mourinho still didn't trust him to do the running. Towards the end of Jose's time he had a run alongside Hojbjerg in the CM2 but our results were pretty patchy and again he rarely lasted 90 mins.

Mason obviously didn't fancy him but I'll accept that Mason probably knew fuck all and just wanted to start Winks and co so not holding it against Tanguy.

Cut to this season and Ndombele hasn't played a game since MW34 of the Prem season, which has given him like 3 clear months to prepare for this season and impress the new manager. Instead, he has supposedly turned up overweight, played 0 minutes, and now is either A) in Nuno's bad books or B) on a different fitness program to the rest of the group. Either scenario is unacceptable.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle - is he actively fat and lazy, and does he deserve disrespect from the fans/club? Of course not. I'm sure he's much fitter than the members of this forum and he's a spurs player so shouldn't be called names or anything like that. On the other hand, does he perhaps warrant some criticism for consistently missing games or being unable to play full games at a good intensity in the position for which we signed him? I think yes - it's been two years and he's still facing the same problems over and over again. The bare minimum of his profession is to get himself as fit as his competition, and he's failing to do so.

-Afri-Coy- said:

I wonder how many people in here kept professionally fit when their partner was expecting and having a child. Can we just let the man enjoy his life a little? There are more important things than football and money you know.

Why it always has to boil down to money talk, insults and cheap shots is beyond me. Critique needs to be fair and most of it hasn’t been.

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How many people in here do you suppose are paid £200k per week with staying fit as the number one most basic requirement of their job? What percentage of footballers do you suppose have children during the course of their careers, and of those how many do you reckon see it as valid justification for showing up to preseason overweight (for the third season running)?

What an absolute load of nonsense.

Trying to take a balanced view, I think many are overreacting to how bad he’s been. Firstly, though, if he’s not getting in proper game shape, and the manager still doesn’t fee he should be included when he had no action over the summer, it’s on the player. Full stop. Inexcusable and unprofessional. And while I’m almost certain he’ll be a hit wherever he goes next and whatever club he moves to, and while I’m a huge fan, I can still understand the situation and think it probably won’t work out here.

But he’s not been a useless waste of space. Bar Kane, Son, Hojbjerg, and Hugo, I’ll say with conviction he was our best player for most of last season. A big improvement on his first season. He’s had huge impacts and decisive moments. I just don’t understand where people get the idea he was terrible last season. He was closer to the opposite of anything.

Second, the club didn’t make a mistake spending the money on him that they did. Remember this was the summer of Joao Felix, Griezmann, Pepe, De Ligt, De Jong, Maguire, etc., and that summer there was a ton of money in the game, more than ever before. And he was a 21 year old France international who was in the Ligue 1 and Champions League TOTS. Not some nobody. There have always been character and application issues, but on the flip side, there’s no way he goes from out of football being released from Guingamp to a top tier European player without some sort of drive and effort.

Whatever issues people may claim, most of the blame falls on the player if he’s not deemed fit enough. If he doesn’t want to be here and isn’t trying to get fit, it may be time to say goodbye, but if he is actually trying, there at least has to be a conversation with all parties to try to get him in the best place possible to make an impact, because his impact will be massive if he’s at his best.

Lastly, I’ll always support a player who wears the shirt, no matter what. These fat jokes are as old and as boring as the jokes made towards our club about trophies. None of us like those trophy jokes, and I doubt anyone likes being called fat. Personal attacks towards players should never be acceptable, and criticism is fine, but should only concern on-pitch performances.

I think too much fuss is made of him turning up in pre-season unfit/over-weight etc. He can work at that to become match fit. Also it sounds like he has had some paternity leave, so its understandable. Yes it's not perfectly professional but so what.

The real and likely concern from Nuno would be whether WHEN he does become match fit, he has enough to last 90 mins, while contributing the way Nuno needs him to.

I don't think we will truly know this until at least end of Sept.

Can he not just be fined until he’s at the weight he should be?

No one should be surprised by this news.

The lad is a total fucking joker.

Easily one of our worst signings.

spursfan77 said:

Can he not just be fined until he’s at the weight he should be?

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Should be, his value has plummeted anyway now.

-Afri-Coy- said:

I wonder how many people in here kept professionally fit when their partner was expecting and having a child. Can we just let the man enjoy his life a little? There are more important things than football and money you know.

Why it always has to boil down to money talk, insults and cheap shots is beyond me. Critique needs to be fair and most of it hasn’t been.

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All the other professional footballers that have children must have a magic potion then.

Don’t know what the club were thinking when they signed this guy. He optimises everything wrong with the scouting and recruitment at the club recently. Hopefully that has now changed with the addition of our DoF.

As for Ndombelly, I would sell at the first opportunity however I’m not sure there will be many suitors.

-Afri-Coy- said:

I wonder how many people in here kept professionally fit when their partner was expecting and having a child. Can we just let the man enjoy his life a little? There are more important things than football and money you know.

Why it always has to boil down to money talk, insults and cheap shots is beyond me. Critique needs to be fair and most of it hasn’t been.

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I lost 2 stone whilst my wife was pregnant with our youngest. Even went to the gym in the same evening. I wasn't being paid to do so...

-Afri-Coy- said:

Just a slight reminder that he wears the shirt and at the least, deserves the level of respect that comes with it in here.

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This is the point though. At the moment he literally isn't fit enough to wear the shirt, even in preseason.
When you're a club's record signing, earning 200k a week, it is TN that needs to be showing some respect to his employers, supporters, his position and himself.

What did that tweet say? It's unavailable now

chrisd2k said:

What did that tweet say? It's unavailable now

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He came to preseason overweight

-Afri-Coy- said:

I wonder how many people in here kept professionally fit when their partner was expecting and having a child. Can we just let the man enjoy his life a little? There are more important things than football and money you know.

Why it always has to boil down to money talk, insults and cheap shots is beyond me. Critique needs to be fair and most of it hasn’t been.

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I would guess that most people on here aren't getting the wage he is - like it or not he is professional sportsman may i remnind you what a great man once said

'Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that'

hellava_tough said:

I'd loan him out for a season.

If he can do a job in the Turkish, Greek or a similiar '2nd tier' league, where application for a talented player isn't such a big deal, then perhaps we could do a sale and pay a portion of the wages.

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Why would he agree to that? He can't even be arsed to get in shape and play for us, there's no way he's going to some dogshit league to prove a point. The guy is weak as fuck.

Wick3d said:

He came to preseason overweight

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Wait, was this an actual tweet from the club account saying he's fat?!

Wick3d said:

He came to preseason overweight

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He went into the season break overweight