Alasdair Gold has claimed that Tottenham new boy Tanguy Ndombele has a “strange habit” of always looking “completely exhausted”.
The French midfielder made his fourth appearance of the Premier League season in his side’s 2-1 defeat to Leicester City on Saturday, and Gold was quick to point out one oddity he has noticed about him.
Writing in a piece for Football.London, he said: “Tanguy Ndombele is a strange one.
“The 22-year-old clearly has talent by the bucketload as shown by his touch and ability to move away from players with ease, but it will take time for him to adapt to the pace and rigours of the Premier League.
“He also has the strange habit of looking completely exhausted from the first minute until the last. Whether he’s genuinely struggling to cope with the English game or it’s just his natural gait we’ll find out as the season progresses.”
How is Ndombele adapting to life in England?
It’s going to take him a while to get properly up to speed, of course, but as Gold points out here, there is plenty to suggest that he has what it takes to become a success for Spurs.
So far this season, he has averaged three tackles per match in the Premier League, as well as a pass completion rate of 83%, as per Whoscored. In Ligue 1 last season he managed just 1.9 tackles per match but hit an impressive pass completion rate of 89.1%.
But it is clear that he still has a couple of gears to kick up into as well.
In last year’s Champions League campaign for Lyon, where he shone, he was able to average 2.9 successful dribbles per match, as well as 1.1 shots per game. So far, for Tottenham, he’s only managed 1.8 dribbles and 0.5 shots per Premier League game.
If he can bring that attacking dynamism to his performances in north London then Spurs will be laughing, but a little bit of patience is to be expected at this stage.
This claim from Gold about Ndombele’s playing style is an odd one though.
He was criticised by fans for looking miles off the pace in the Champions League game against Olympiacos last week.
Surely, though, if he is starting matches, he must be fit enough to justify his position in the lineup, and so it seems strange that he looks so tired so soon into matches.
The only logical explanation is that he just looks awkward all of the time, but with the way that footballers are scrutinised these days, he has to be careful not to fall victim to misconceptions about his actual ability on the ball. Especially at a new club.