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Tanguy Ndombele

Surfless said:
he reminds me of Adel Taarabt. And Kevin Prince Boateng. And Hossam Ghaly. And Moussa Saib.
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Funnily enough all those players had something that Ndombele lacks. If he had it he would truly be world class. They all had fight, grit and a nasty street.
 
braineclipse said:
Both look fine to me.

Against a medium block, complete control of possession at the back, one of them leading 1-0 away to Arsenal.

What exactly do you want him to do here? Astonishing from Alderweireld yes. Move the ball left to right, Sanchez is available, finding him could make either Aurier or Ndombele available for easy passes that would be at least marginally useful. Alternatively Lloris, or back to the left. Instead, back to left where the Arsenal players already are having shifted to that side. Back into congestion and trouble. No discernable upside, clear potential risk.

Meanwhile Ndombele who understands space and movement is standing there, where he should be, potentially available for a useful pass if the obvious pass is made first, pointing at the obvious pass that should be made wondering how on earth the ball ended up on the left and in congestion again.
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Absolutely agreed - Ndombele is asking them to switch play over to the right, rather than continue pushing mince through a sieve down the left wing, he and Sanchez are available and Tubs also points over to whoever was playing right wing who was free. Perhaps Tubs had been asking for this to happen for 10 games and had had enough and was just pointing exasperatedly yet again?

Note that Tubs will often walk and feign disinterest, to the point that defenders will worry about giving him the ball... but you can always give Tubs the ball because he is just conning the opposition and will do some sort of lazy flick flack roly poly and be through the press. Maybe.
 
elltrev said:
This is why I like posting video clips - fascinating to see how people's opinions can diverge when looking at the exact same 10 second clip!

In the first clip, I just want him to move. That's it. I appreciate we're 1-0 up, but surely you still want both of your central midfielders to be trying to get on the ball?

In the second clip, it's more his attitude - twice showing his frustration at where his teammates are passing, and not in a constructive way (i.e. he doesn't actually try and communicate with them). To me it feels reflective of laziness more than superior positional awareness. Especially as I don't agree that a pass to Sanchez was necessarily the superior option - Arsenal were only a few yards shifted to our left, and would have very easily shifted back the other way if Toby had passed back to Sanchez:

View attachment 12583
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Agreed, makes for interesting conversations and the possibility to understand different perspectives better.

No, I don't really want the midfielder on the ball, unless there's a purpose to it. Medium block, Arsenal crowding that central third. If he receives the ball from a starting point like that in the video (no tempo from us to start with, what is he going to do with it?

-Pass it back? Does nothing.
-Pass it forward? To who? Arsenal are organised in a medium block, we have no pace on the ball, we're not making them move, there's not going to be a lot of available players to find.
-Dribble? Sure, he's great at that. But he'd be facing two oppents very quickly, with others there to cover. Even if he broke through the press dribbling two players he'd be under pressure. If he lost the ball they'd be running at our centre backs. He'd have to succeed dribbling two players way more often than half the time to make it worth the risk. That's the kind of high risk low reward play in deeper areas that (imo) got you quickly dropped by Mourinho.

I want us to move the ball quicker from side to side at the back. We can do so effectively with close to zero risk. Make the opposition move from side to side, that's when pockets of space open up, opponents being slightly slow to react, slow to move, you know, being a rather Arsenal midfield.

Then I'd want him to move to receive the ball, in situations where a bit of trickery could actually break through a line of pressure (a much better outcome than dribbling into a settled team with available cover) dribbling one man (a much more likely outcome than dribbling two). Or find a forward pass in a situation where there might be space for attackers to move into due to opponents having to shift back and forth.

Just before the still you posted Reguilon had the ball with Arsenal pushed as far over as they'd be likely to go. Reguilon could have passed it directly to Alderweireld. Hojbjerg takes way too long to move it on. But still Arsenal are somewhat over to that side and shifting to the other side at least creates the opportunity to make Arsenal work and shift back and forth thus creating space. Instead Alderweireld turns play back to the more congested side.

Perhaps we're just slowing things down, wasting time. But even that would be done better by moving the ball in a way that made Arsenal work harder and didn't put Reguilon in a situation where he could lose it.

All round poor from everyone involved apart from Ndombele imo.

I care very little about his body language. I care a lot more about our defenders building from the back in a rather useless way, despite the circumstances being fairly basic.
 
Ndombele makes me sad.

Sad that we didn't get Bruno Fernandes instead - half the skill but but about five times the attitude.

Sad that he's wasting such incredible talents through being an entitled lazy prima donna. Or at least, that's how it seems.

Sad that we're going to have wasted a significant sum of cash on such a terrible signing.

Seems that his ego needs him to be a big fish in a small pond. Our team isn't good enough to carry a luxury player, but nor is it bad enough to make it worth building the team around him.
 
AdamB said:
That second one is astonishing!
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In the second clip he should've got the ball from (I think it is) Toby at the very start of the clip. If Ndombele receives the ball there he can be facing forwards with the ball in a central position and can probably work the ball to Kane in a dangerous position to start a proper attack. Toby instead makes a 'safe', nothing pass to Hojbjerg. Immediately after Toby hasn't given him the ball Ndombele should probably also then get the ball from Hojbjerg. A little later in the clip Toby absolutely should pass to Sanchez as Ndombele is directing him to, Sanchez would then have an easy forward pass up the line to Ndombele in decent space, who would then have Kane in a great position centrally and Doherty high and wide on the right. The more and more I watch of our play under Mourinho the more and more I question whether his Spurs team actually had any coaching!
 
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FatBloke said:
Ndombele makes me sad.

Sad that we didn't get Bruno Fernandes instead - half the skill but but about five times the attitude.

Sad that he's wasting such incredible talents through being an entitled lazy prima donna. Or at least, that's how it seems.

Sad that we're going to have wasted a significant sum of cash on such a terrible signing.

Seems that his ego needs him to be a big fish in a small pond. Our team isn't good enough to carry a luxury player, but nor is it bad enough to make it worth building the team around him.
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I think it was Lo Celso that we got instead of Fernandes (and I expect that was because he was available for less money overall and a loan to buy deal).
 
Bedfordspurs said:
And was slightly younger and had had a great season at the time
People also forget that Fernandez had a mare move abroad before and they also didn’t want to sell
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Agree with all of that but the last bit.... His club were happy to sell him they just weren't selling him for anything other than a decent price for them.
 
FatBloke said:
Our team isn't good enough to carry a luxury player
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Which teams are good enough to do so?

KdB works hard, Ronaldo works hard, even Messi whilst not being a work horse, is always watching play and looking to be in a position to suddenly ignite and then does give 100%

The best players in the world generally aren't lazy players. They have natural ability and then work hard to make the most of that ability, rather than risk lesser players being better than them through hard work

Ndombele unfortunately appears to think that because of his natural ability he can be lazy. Doesn't work like that if you want to achieve things I'm afraid
 
Finney Is Back said:
I think it was Lo Celso that we got instead of Fernandes (and I expect that was because he was available for less money overall and a loan to buy deal).
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Oops. Yes, of course it was GLC. I've got no problem with that as no-one could have been sure what a massive success Fernandes would become at ManU.

Strike that bit then.
 
Hindsight is always 20-20. Yet even at that time, Fernandes was regarded much more highly that Lo Celso.... However Poch wanted the Argentinean. Just as well documented was Ndombele's personality and character flaws; but - like he had attempted with Osvaldo at Southampton - I guess he thought he could overcome them!!
 
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