Giovani Lo Celso and Tanguy Ndombele at Spurs: Who has been the bigger disappointment?
Charlie Eccleshare and Jack Pitt-Brooke
In the summer of 2019, Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso arrived at Tottenham Hotspur to great excitement.
After 18 months without signing a player, Spurs were finally making moves in the transfer market, and had brought in two extremely exciting young midfielders.
Three years on, Lo Celso has been loaned out for the second time, and Spurs are desperately trying to find someone who will take Ndombele for what would also be a second loan.
Neither, it’s fair to say, have come anything close to living up to the hype. But who has been the bigger disappointment?
On Friday afternoon, The Athletic’s Charlie Eccleshare polled Spurs fans on Twitter, who voted Ndombele the bigger flop.
Now, both of The Athletic’s Tottenham Hotspur writers argue the merits (or otherwise) of the two players…
Charlie Eccleshare: Ndombele has been the bigger disappointment
When assessing who the bigger disappointment has been, one of the elements we have to factor in is expectations.
And expectations surrounding Ndombele were sky high. My learned colleague Jack Pitt-Brooke captured the mood in July 2019 when he wrote: “The £55million ($66.4m) arrival of Tanguy Ndombele from Olympique Lyonnais is not just the most important football signing of the summer, but the loudest statement about the direction of any club for years.”
Ndombele was viewed as the kind of marquee signing that Spurs simply didn’t make, and given the way he had shone against Manchester City in the previous season’s Champions League, seemed ready to excel in the Premier League.
The club-record fee and huge wages on a six-year deal need also to be noted here (not that Lo Celso came cheap — he cost £42.3million taking into account an initial £15m loan deal and then £27.3m transfer fee).
So given the expectations and the fee, it is staggering how out of favour Ndombele has been for much of his time at Spurs. Yes, there was the good run in the 2020-21 season (when Jose Mourinho had to sacrifice any guile in the rest of his midfield by selecting Moussa Sissoko and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg as shields alongside him) but really that was an island in a sea of disappointment. Ndombele was frequently not even on the bench under Mourinho, a situation that repeated itself under all of Ryan Mason, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte. To not even be deemed good, or fit enough, to be a substitute as a record signing by such a range of managers is pretty extraordinary.
The other side of this is Lo Celso, and my belief that there was at least a period when it seemed like he and Spurs would be a good fit (whereas that good run for Ndombele under Mourinho always felt, certainly in hindsight, a little like a temporary truce).
The Lo Celso period I’m referring to was the one between January to March 2020 when he was Spurs’ best player pretty much every game for a 13-match period between him coming on and almost scoring against Liverpool to the 3-0 defeat at RB Leipzig in the Champions League. There was, among other moments, the half-the-length-of-the-pitch dribble against Southampton, the appearance as a half-time substitute against Burnley when he completely changed the game, the excellent goal against Middlesbrough. This correspondent excitedly gave him the award of Tottenham’s player of the season so far when play was stopped because of the first COVID-19 lockdown.
That lockdown came at a bad time for Lo Celso, who remained a regular for Mourinho when play resumed but he never again played with the same edge. And a goal against Manchester City in November 2020 aside (his only Premier League goal for the club) he did little of note afterwards.
But you could at least imagine a world in which he became a Spurs regular again. He is a good dribbler, can create chances, and has an edge to him that makes life uncomfortable for opposition players. There’s a reason why he’s enjoyed a very successful international career with Argentina, and will be part of their World Cup squad in Qatar.
Perhaps, reading this, that makes you feel even more disappointed by him — the fact that things could have worked out, whereas with hindsight Ndombele was doomed from the start (or certainly from the moment Mauricio Pochettino was sacked).
But that to me at least suggests that Lo Celso showed glimpses of being the player Spurs thought they had signed. Ndombele showed similar glimpses but always seemed locked in a boom-and-bust doom spiral.
Jack Pitt-Brooke: Lo Celso was the bigger disappointment
Is Ndombele a Tottenham flop? Well yes, obviously. Even I, a staunch Ndombele loyalist, would struggle to argue against that. He is, for the second time in seven months, training away from the main group at Spurs, being touted around the European loan market, as Tottenham try to find someone who is not too put off by his £125,000-per-week salary and what can best be described as a patchy reputation. Even if he does sign for Napoli on loan — and they are at the front of the queue — there is no guarantee he will not be back at Spurs next July, trying to get fit, hoping someone will take a chance on him again.
No one could say today that the £55million Spurs spent on Ndombele in the summer of 2019 — still Spurs’ record signing — was money well spent. In hindsight, that fee stands as a relic of pre-COVID bullishness, before the pandemic hit club incomes in a way that they are still recovering from.
But the case here is not that Ndombele was a good signing, or good value for money. Merely that he has been less of a flop at Spurs than Lo Celso, who arrived that same summer, and has himself just departed on his second loan away from N17.
And what swings it is the fact that Ndombele, despite his reputation, has a far better body of work as a Spurs player to his name than Lo Celso. Ultimately the case for Lo Celso can rest only on a handful of games — a dozen at most — in the winter of the 2019-20 season, just before the pandemic pause in March 2020. After that, frankly, there was very little.
But while Ndombele never hit Harry Kane or Son Heung-min levels of consistency, he was a reliable player for longer spells than Lo Celso. It never clicked under Pochettino — the manager he was signed for — because of the adaptation Ndombele needed in English football. But under Jose Mourinho, despite a few ups and downs, he played well. He ran the game at Norwich City in December 2019 (producing an unforgettable rabona cross), he kickstarted the 5-2 win at Southampton the following season with a brilliant turn (Eccleshare: “Though he was subbed off at half-time of that game”), provided a clever assist to Son against City, and best of all scored a magical hooked flick at Sheffield United in January 2021.
In that spell in the middle of the 2020-21 season, just before the Mourinho era went into its fatal spiral, it really felt as if Ndombele had fully settled at Spurs. Even after Mourinho left there were still moments that showed how good he could be: the goals at Wolves or Newcastle under Nuno, the assist to Kane against Liverpool under Conte. The frustration was that Conte, like other managers before him, decided that he was not worth the bother, even though his talent was never in doubt.
Put all of these moments together and you get enough, at least, for an entertaining YouTube compilation, a handful of happy memories from a few years when Spurs went through a difficult transition. Lo Celso may prove to have a better career than Ndombele at club and international level, but the fact remains his best moment for Spurs came in an FA Cup third-round replay against a Championship side.
Are these enough to justify Ndombele’s £55m? No. Enough to save Ndombele from being a ‘flop’? Not quite. But enough to mark him out not just as a good player, but a player who played well for Tottenham, not just for a few weeks, but on and off for the best part of two years. Even if Spurs only saw a fraction of his talent, it was still a bigger fraction than they saw of Lo Celso’s. And that alone makes him less of a disappointment at the club.
https://theathletic.com/3508257/2022/08/16/lo-celso-ndombele-tottenham-hotspur/
Giovani Lo Celso and Tanguy Ndombele at Spurs: Who has been the bigger disappointment?
Charlie Eccleshare and Jack Pitt-Brooke
In the summer of 2019, Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso arrived at Tottenham Hotspur to great excitement.
After 18 months without signing a player, Spurs were finally making moves in the transfer market, and had brought in two extremely exciting young midfielders.
Three years on, Lo Celso has been loaned out for the second time, and Spurs are desperately trying to find someone who will take Ndombele for what would also be a second loan.
Neither, it’s fair to say, have come anything close to living up to the hype. But who has been the bigger disappointment?
On Friday afternoon, The Athletic’s Charlie Eccleshare polled Spurs fans on Twitter, who voted Ndombele the bigger flop.
Now, both of The Athletic’s Tottenham Hotspur writers argue the merits (or otherwise) of the two players…
Charlie Eccleshare: Ndombele has been the bigger disappointment
When assessing who the bigger disappointment has been, one of the elements we have to factor in is expectations.
And expectations surrounding Ndombele were sky high. My learned colleague Jack Pitt-Brooke captured the mood in July 2019 when he wrote: “The £55million ($66.4m) arrival of Tanguy Ndombele from Olympique Lyonnais is not just the most important football signing of the summer, but the loudest statement about the direction of any club for years.”
Ndombele was viewed as the kind of marquee signing that Spurs simply didn’t make, and given the way he had shone against Manchester City in the previous season’s Champions League, seemed ready to excel in the Premier League.
The club-record fee and huge wages on a six-year deal need also to be noted here (not that Lo Celso came cheap — he cost £42.3million taking into account an initial £15m loan deal and then £27.3m transfer fee).
So given the expectations and the fee, it is staggering how out of favour Ndombele has been for much of his time at Spurs. Yes, there was the good run in the 2020-21 season (when Jose Mourinho had to sacrifice any guile in the rest of his midfield by selecting Moussa Sissoko and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg as shields alongside him) but really that was an island in a sea of disappointment. Ndombele was frequently not even on the bench under Mourinho, a situation that repeated itself under all of Ryan Mason, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte. To not even be deemed good, or fit enough, to be a substitute as a record signing by such a range of managers is pretty extraordinary.
The other side of this is Lo Celso, and my belief that there was at least a period when it seemed like he and Spurs would be a good fit (whereas that good run for Ndombele under Mourinho always felt, certainly in hindsight, a little like a temporary truce).
The Lo Celso period I’m referring to was the one between January to March 2020 when he was Spurs’ best player pretty much every game for a 13-match period between him coming on and almost scoring against Liverpool to the 3-0 defeat at RB Leipzig in the Champions League. There was, among other moments, the half-the-length-of-the-pitch dribble against Southampton, the appearance as a half-time substitute against Burnley when he completely changed the game, the excellent goal against Middlesbrough. This correspondent excitedly gave him the award of Tottenham’s player of the season so far when play was stopped because of the first COVID-19 lockdown.
That lockdown came at a bad time for Lo Celso, who remained a regular for Mourinho when play resumed but he never again played with the same edge. And a goal against Manchester City in November 2020 aside (his only Premier League goal for the club) he did little of note afterwards.
But you could at least imagine a world in which he became a Spurs regular again. He is a good dribbler, can create chances, and has an edge to him that makes life uncomfortable for opposition players. There’s a reason why he’s enjoyed a very successful international career with Argentina, and will be part of their World Cup squad in Qatar.
Perhaps, reading this, that makes you feel even more disappointed by him — the fact that things could have worked out, whereas with hindsight Ndombele was doomed from the start (or certainly from the moment Mauricio Pochettino was sacked).
But that to me at least suggests that Lo Celso showed glimpses of being the player Spurs thought they had signed. Ndombele showed similar glimpses but always seemed locked in a boom-and-bust doom spiral.
Jack Pitt-Brooke: Lo Celso was the bigger disappointment
Is Ndombele a Tottenham flop? Well yes, obviously. Even I, a staunch Ndombele loyalist, would struggle to argue against that. He is, for the second time in seven months, training away from the main group at Spurs, being touted around the European loan market, as Tottenham try to find someone who is not too put off by his £125,000-per-week salary and what can best be described as a patchy reputation. Even if he does sign for Napoli on loan — and they are at the front of the queue — there is no guarantee he will not be back at Spurs next July, trying to get fit, hoping someone will take a chance on him again.
No one could say today that the £55million Spurs spent on Ndombele in the summer of 2019 — still Spurs’ record signing — was money well spent. In hindsight, that fee stands as a relic of pre-COVID bullishness, before the pandemic hit club incomes in a way that they are still recovering from.
But the case here is not that Ndombele was a good signing, or good value for money. Merely that he has been less of a flop at Spurs than Lo Celso, who arrived that same summer, and has himself just departed on his second loan away from N17.
And what swings it is the fact that Ndombele, despite his reputation, has a far better body of work as a Spurs player to his name than Lo Celso. Ultimately the case for Lo Celso can rest only on a handful of games — a dozen at most — in the winter of the 2019-20 season, just before the pandemic pause in March 2020. After that, frankly, there was very little.
But while Ndombele never hit Harry Kane or Son Heung-min levels of consistency, he was a reliable player for longer spells than Lo Celso. It never clicked under Pochettino — the manager he was signed for — because of the adaptation Ndombele needed in English football. But under Jose Mourinho, despite a few ups and downs, he played well. He ran the game at Norwich City in December 2019 (producing an unforgettable rabona cross), he kickstarted the 5-2 win at Southampton the following season with a brilliant turn (Eccleshare: “Though he was subbed off at half-time of that game”), provided a clever assist to Son against City, and best of all scored a magical hooked flick at Sheffield United in January 2021.
In that spell in the middle of the 2020-21 season, just before the Mourinho era went into its fatal spiral, it really felt as if Ndombele had fully settled at Spurs. Even after Mourinho left there were still moments that showed how good he could be: the goals at Wolves or Newcastle under Nuno, the assist to Kane against Liverpool under Conte. The frustration was that Conte, like other managers before him, decided that he was not worth the bother, even though his talent was never in doubt.
Put all of these moments together and you get enough, at least, for an entertaining YouTube compilation, a handful of happy memories from a few years when Spurs went through a difficult transition. Lo Celso may prove to have a better career than Ndombele at club and international level, but the fact remains his best moment for Spurs came in an FA Cup third-round replay against a Championship side.
Are these enough to justify Ndombele’s £55m? No. Enough to save Ndombele from being a ‘flop’? Not quite. But enough to mark him out not just as a good player, but a player who played well for Tottenham, not just for a few weeks, but on and off for the best part of two years. Even if Spurs only saw a fraction of his talent, it was still a bigger fraction than they saw of Lo Celso’s. And that alone makes him less of a disappointment at the club.
https://theathletic.com/3508257/2022/08/16/lo-celso-ndombele-tottenham-hotspur/