Jose Mourinho’s dilemma over Tanguy Ndombele, Tottenham’s laid-back record signing
Jose Mourinho offered a revealing insight into his relationship with Tanguy Ndombele ahead of Tottenham’s trip to Sheffield United tonight , admitting he has still not discovered what makes the Frenchman tick.
“Six months is not enough [time] for me to find or describe his psychological profile,” Mourinho said.
There is, arguably, no manager in the modern game who has harnessed psychology to better effect than Mourinho and the 57-year-old immediately related to Harry Kane’s obsessive single-mindedness and understood how to motivate Dele Alli, for example.
Mourinho and Ndombele are an uncomfortable fit, however; one a charismatic and demanding taskmaster, the other a relaxed and introverted maverick.
Mourinho’s difficulty in describing Ndombele’s mindset goes some way to explaining the club record-signing’s predicament at Spurs.
On and off the pitch, Ndombele is unconventional. In style, he is still more like a street footballer, gloriously unpredictable and unpolished, but lacking the discipline and the fitness valued by Mourinho. In demeanour, Ndombele is shy and laid-back, characteristics that could scarcely be applied to his manager.
The two seem at odds, and it is easy to imagine Ndombele struggling with Mourinho’s regimented tactical and fitness drills, particularly when Spurs released a training video last week showing the 23-year-old playing in a beanie hat in searing heat.
Harnessing Ndombele’s potential has gradually become one of Mourinho’s biggest challenges and it is important he succeeds, both for his own sake and the club’s.
In the current climate, Spurs simply cannot afford to write off Ndombele as a bad job, while returning him to the form which persuaded the club to pay £55million a year ago would assuage doubts that Mourinho has fallen behind the likes of Jurgen Klopp at managing modern players.
Mourinho yesterday acknowledged that his transfer budget will be impacted if Spurs fail to secure a fifth consecutive season in the Champions League and in the post-coronavirus landscape, Spurs are unlikely to recoup their money on the France international, nor sign a replacement of similar potential.
You only have to look back to January, when the club agreed an optional £56m future fee for loanee Gedson Fernandes for an example of pre-shutdown excess that now seems unfathomable. The club needs Ndombele to be a success, as Mourinho acknowledged yesterday.
“The club want everyone to adapt to [the situation],” he said.
“When a player has no talent, nothing happens. You are born without potential, you die without potential. When you have talent, lots of things can change, you have a chance.”
Mourinho suggested Ndombele would play his first minutes since the restart at Bramall Lane but insisted it would not be a “drama” if he remained on the bench. “That’s the life in big clubs,” he said.
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