Ndombele's carrots have run out and he'll go down as Spurs' biggest flop
Spurs have ended the French midfielder's contract a year early - and his five-year stint must go down as one of Daniel Levy's worst deals
The question 'What do you do with a problem like Tanguy Ndombele?' has been answered for Tottenham Hotspur half a decade on. You release him.
Spurs have come to a mutual agreement with the 27-year-old Frenchman over bringing to a close the high-earning six-year contract they handed him all those years ago in the summer of 2019.
It says everything about the decline of a midfielder many called the most gifted footballer they had ever seen on a pitch - albeit mostly the training pitch.
The five-time Champions League-winner Gareth Bale was asked in 2021 which player had surprised him the most in his entire long and successful career and he pointed to the Frenchman.
"I'd probably say Ndombele this season. I hadn't seen too much of him when I was watching Spurs games the season before. I think obviously he had an adaptation period coming over to England because it's quite a big jump," he said. "Just seeing what he does in training and on the pitch, I was very surprised. The amount of ability he has is actually frightening, the stuff he does with the ball kind of reminds me of the things you see Ronaldinho do with the ball. It is quite nice to watch."
He added: "I wouldn't say on a par [with Ronaldinho], but it reminds me of some of the stuff he does with the ball. It's mind-blowing, especially in training."
Bale probably got to see the best of Ndombele in a Spurs shirt as well. For all of the public nature of the dressing downs from Jose Mourinho and that awkward public lockdown impromptu training session, it was the Portuguese who squeezed the most out of the player.
In the 2020/21 campaign, Ndombele started 31 matches for Tottenham, 28 of them in the Premier League, with three goals and three assists. It remains the second most games he's started in a season in his senior career, the most coming in the campaign at Lyon that resulted in his £60m move to north London.
Yet it all fell away, as it has always done with Ndombele
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