Tottenham Hotspur drew 1-1 at Burnley on Saturday.
Pundit Jamie Carragher has told Sky Sports that he thinks Tanguy Ndombele doesn’t have a future at Tottenham Hotspur under Jose Mourinho.
Tottenham travelled up to Turf Moor on Saturday evening, and claimed a 1-1 draw as Dele Alli’s second half penalty cancelled out Chris Wood’s opener.
That wasn’t exactly the biggest story though, as the performance and subsequent slamming of midfielder Ndombele has made headlines since the final whistle.
Ndombele was hooked at half time by Mourinho, and the Spurs boss went on to suggest that he had no midfield in the first half, and refused to blame teenager Oliver Skipp – therefore pinning the issue on Ndombele.
Mourinho later added that Ndombele had more than enough time to impact the game, and Tottenham need more from him right now even if he’s struggling to adjust to the Premier League.
Ndombele was Tottenham’s club-record signing last summer as Mauricio Pochettino landed him from Lyon, and fans were excited after he made a real name for himself in France.
Ndombele has struggled for form and more importantly fitness this season, with the midfielder largely unable to complete 90 minutes on a regular basis.
Now, Carragher has reacted to the comments, firstly by suggesting that Mourinho was spot on to criticise a ‘disgrace’ of a performance off the ball, whilst pointing out that Ndombele had zero sprints in 45 minutes and was slower than every player except goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.
Carragher does believe that Ndombele showed ‘pure quality’ on the ball, but his lack of effort and movement off it just isn’t good enough, even likening him to Yaya Toure in that he only comes alive when the ball is at his feet whilst adding that he ‘guarantees’ Tottenham defenders don’t enjoy playing with him because he doesn’t show for the ball.
Finally, Carragher suggested that Mourinho was sending a message to Daniel Levy about Ndombele, and believes that there is little future for the Frenchman at Spurs, predicting an early exit for him after Mourinho ‘snapped’ on Saturday.
“Yes, it was [justified],” said Carragher. “Again, that’s another debate and Sven’s spot on, do you do it publicly or privately? His performance was nothing short of a disgrace in terms of his effort off the ball. Actually on the ball he was very good, but off the ball, when I watched the game, I watched the first half against last night and you can’t believe what you’re seeing. I had 10 clips, I’ve had to choose three, because of the time constraints of the show. You actually look at his stats, on the ball, he was the best in the first half in terms of passes completed and passing accuracy, and when you watch him in the game, he very rarely loses the ball. But if you go lower than that, not one sprint in 45 minutes, the top speed, he’s 10th – I would imagine Lloris is number 11.”
“This is an example, not moving, not interested in helping a teammate, Vertonghen is stuck and just goes ‘you can have it’, but look at this for ability; that was all day, every time he got the ball, he never lost it – he had pure quality. The only thing with him is he either can’t run or he doesn’t want to run; both of them are not good things. When you actually watch him play, he’s a funny shape. He’s almost got a bit of Yaya Toure about him without sprinting forward, where he looks like he’s got a big backside, he doesn’t like to run or defend, everything is jogging, walking like an old man, but when the ball comes to him, he comes alive. That is not enough. Now people may look at the passing stats and say ‘he’s a good player, and he might do this or do that’, but I guarantee that those three centre backs will have been on the coach or the plane on the way home after that game saying ‘I don’t enjoy playing with him, how bad was that when we had the ball, there was nobody to pass the ball to’, and that’s the biggest problem. So, should Jose go public or private? It doesn’t matter to me, but what he actually said about his performance was absolutely spot on.”
“I think with Jose, there’s only ever two messages; the message is either number one to the player, you have to change, you have to do something different, or the message is to the owner; which is to say ‘this player is not good enough, I don’t care he cost £60million and is the record buy, he’s not good enough for my team, I need funds in the summer’. If you’re asking me is it to the player or the owner? For me, it’s to the owner. I don’t think there’s much future for Ndombele, I think he’s started five or six games in 25 under Jose Mourinho, he doesn’t like him. This criticism will not be because of that 45 minutes. There’s no way Ndombele is running around in training if he’s doing that in a game, so he must be very lazy in training, and Jose has just snapped and had enough.”
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