Tanguy Ndombele’s fitness continues to be one of the major talking points within the Tottenham sphere at present.
The midfielder, who arrived for a record fee from Lyon last summer, is still struggling to play more than 60 minutes per game for Spurs despite being injury-free for some time now.
The beginning of his Tottenham career was hindered by several muscle injuries, leading to him missing numerous games under Mauricio Pochettino and finding it difficult to get minutes during Mourinho’s early days.
Ndombele was thrown into the starting line-up against Chelsea last weekend, but he was taken off on the hour after tiring quickly in the second half.
Football London journalist Alasdar Gold gave a Q&A earlier this week in which he expanded on an explanation given by Mourinho as to why Ndombele still lacks fitness.
“I think we’ll start to see it (an improvement) with every passing week,” Gold said. “Getting 60 minutes into his legs was a big deal. Yes, he looked knackered at times, but if he came through it without any injuries then it’s a step in the right direction.
“I asked Mourinho a couple of days ago why after six months of the season, following a full pre-season, he still couldn’t rely on Ndombele to play 90 minutes and he simply said it was all the niggling little injuries that had messed up his fitness.
“I followed that up with pretty much your question, had he seen benefits of putting the Frenchman on the ‘global training programme’ to improve his all round fitness, diet and nutrition. His answer was simply that at least he hadn’t got injured since which I guess is progress.”
It’s promising to hear that Ndombele is now on a “global fitness programme” in a bid to improve his condition. But of course, the proof will be in the pudding – will Ndombele last more than an hour against Wolves this weekend?
They were all fitter under Pitch. Why is yhst
Not this season the champions League final threw the whole preseason off Poch unfortunately wasn’t the same after.