After 517 days without a signing, Tottenham supporters were understandably excited when the club announced the double capture of Jack Clarke from Leeds and Tanguy Ndombele from Lyon.
While the young Englishman was hailed as a talent for the future, it was thought that Ndombele would hit the ground running after his arrival for a club-record £55 million ($69m).
The evidence certainly suggested that Spurs had landed another rising star that they could groom into a world-class talent. But rather than excel in London, the France international is floundering, a contender for the title of the worst signing of the season.
“I was expecting players not tired to give more to the team, and I think somebody has to realise that this is the Premier League, and this is a new experience, and the first time he comes to Burnley, and I hope next season he can be fantastic because until now it is not enough,” manager Jose Mourinho said after last weekend’s 1-1 draw at Turf Moor, unsubtly jabbing at the midfielder, who until now has contributed only two goals and two assists in the Premier League.
“I'm not going to run away and I have to say he has had enough time to come to a different level.
“I know the Premier League is difficult, and some players take a long time to adapt to a different league. But a player with his potential has to give us more than he is giving us, especially when you see how Lucas (Moura), (Giovani) Lo Celso and those players are playing.
“I cannot keep giving him opportunities.”
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Mourinho made his point by withdrawing the midfielder at the break at Burnley, with Ndombele having failed to attempt a single tackle or make a single interception.
It was not the first time that the Portuguese had fired a barb at the Paris-born midfielder either.
“He’s always injured,” the ex-Real Madrid and Manchester United manager complained in January. “He’s injured, he’s not injured, he plays one match. This is the same since the beginning of the season.”
While Ndombele had to overcome a crippling hip condition as a teenager that might have ended his career before it began, he has never previously suffered problems like he has in England, where he has featured in three successive Premier League matches on only two occasions this season.
Indeed, at Lyon, he missed only six Ligue 1 matches over the course of two seasons and was on the bench for five of those fixtures.
Whether his issues are genuine or in his head, his attitude on the field has come under fire far more than his ability to influence a match for good when in possession.
“His performance was nothing short of a disgrace in terms of his effort off the ball. On the ball, he was very good, but off the ball, you can't believe what you're seeing,” Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher said after the Burnley fixture.
“If you look at his stats on the ball in the first half, he was one of the best Tottenham players. When you watch him in the game, he very rarely loses the ball.
“But he didn't have a single sprint in 45 minutes. He just seems to walk about and not move until the ball comes near him. He likes to tell other people what to do. He was hiding.”
This assessment could scarcely be any further from that of N’Golo Kante, who commented after Ndombele’s international debut against Iceland: “He runs everywhere; he doesn’t stop.”
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Unsurprisingly given the roasting given to him by his manager, he did not take to the field in Tuesday’s 3-0 Champions League loss at Leipzig, a fixture that proved a chastening encounter for Spurs as they were comprehensively outplayed by the Bundesliga side.
Missing Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min, they found themselves without a leader on the pitch. Ndombele was signed to fulfil that role, so it was a damning indictment of just how far he has fallen in seven months that he was not able to play a single minute, despite being fully fit.
There is no question that he is good enough to play at the highest level, though. With Lyon he twice excelled against Manchester City in last season’s Champions League, even helping the Rhone side to a shock 2-1 success at the Etihad Stadium – a match in which his power and technical ease shone brightly.
Similarly, he was hailed by erstwhile Lyon coach Bruno Genesio after a 2-1 home win over PSG in 2018 for the “balance” he brought to the team and his “ability to solve tactical problems with his intelligence of play”.
Regarded by Philippe Lemaire, his Under-17 coach at Guingamp as being someone “who stinks of football”, his U-turn in both attitude and application is a puzzling one indeed.
On paper, he has the blueprint of being a player ideally set up to play in the Premier League and for a Mourinho team, yet the reality has proven to be spectacularly different.
“There are many fantastic players that in first seasons in new countries, for different reasons, struggle,” Mourinho added after the Burnley disaster, throwing the midfielder a bone of hope that, even if he is scantly used before the end of the current campaign, he may yet have the chance to prove himself.
Ndombele was supposed to be a symbol of Tottenham’s bright future but has instead become a motif of a dreadfully disappointing campaign that has them scrambling for any sort of European place next season.
He can – and must – do better if he is to reach his potential.