Mauricio Pochettino has revealed that Georges-Kevin NKoudou has finally started to realise what it takes to be a Premier League footballer.
The French winger, 22, signed for Spurs for £11million from Marseille but has never really made an impact on the senior team, with most of his 21 appearances across all competitions coming as a substitute.
But Pochettino has seen signs of a shift in attitude from NKoudou in the last few weeks and has decided that he is ready for a bigger role, starting with Wednesday’s Champions League clash against Apoel Nicosia at Wembley.
“I am happy with him in the last few weeks,” Pochettino said of NKoudou at his Tuesday media briefing, as quoted by Football London. “He started to realised that he needed to improve in many things. It’s true that he’s so young. I wanted to give him before an opportunity before but maybe it was impossible. Maybe tomorrow he will have the possibility to play and to prove that he can help the team and start to grow up.
“I think when the players are so young, always they need different timings and to realise how they need to work. I think he’s a great guy. Nothing to complain about his behaviour and everything because he’s a lovely kid. But in professional football in the last few weeks he’s shown he should have the possibility to play and show his quality.”
NKoudou has played just four times this season and has not once been named in the starting line-up despite long-term absences for the likes of Erik Lamela, Mousa Dembele and Victor Wanyama.
OPINION
The message from Pochettino is strong and clear; NKoudou’s attitude change has brought him into the first team reckoning, just when many assumed his Spurs career was over was a January loan move seemingly inevitable. The former France Under-21 international has extreme pace and is a decent dribbler but his lack of work rate has stalled his progress, as have the absence of many of the other key facets that mark the first team regulars in the attacking midfield positions, such as touch, passing, combination play, game awareness, tactical understanding. The manager’s decision to publicly criticise the player in his newly-published autobiography suggested NKoudou’s time was all but up. But he has been given a stay of execution. If he starts against Apoel, can he grasp his opportunity?