Joe Mourinho held nothing back in his assessment of Tottenham summer signing, Tanguy Ndombele.
The Spurs head coach has been critical of Ndombele’s fitness levels earlier as well.
A midfield duo of the club record signing alongside Oliver Skipp proved to be ineffective against Burnley last night. Tottenham went into half-time a goal down and had to switch up their gameplay entirely. The former pair were taken off to introduce Giovanni Lo Celso and Lucas Moura after which Spurs found their equalizer through a Dele Alli penalty.
“I think the quality and dynamic of Lucas and Lo Celso made a difference, and I don’t – I want to say but I cannot say,” Mourinho told Sky Sports after Spurs’ winless run extended to five games. “We had something in the first half that we didn’t have in the second half, so in the second half we improved a lot.”
Pushed for more, he said, “I think fatigue is fatigue, Lucas had it and Lo Celso had it and [Steven] Bergwijn had it and Dele Alli had it and they gave what you saw. I don’t ask much more than that.
“I was expecting players not tired to give more to the team and I think somebody [Ndombele] has to realise this is the Premier League. I think this is probably a new experience, the first time he comes to Burnley, and I hope next season he can be fantastic because until now isn’t enough. I hope that he uses every minute on the pitch and every minute knowing what the Premier League is to improve. Many fantastic players in their first season in a new country, for different reasons, they struggle. There are many, many examples of that.
“He’s a player with great talent and has to know he has to do much better and know I cannot keep giving him opportunities to play because the team is much more important than the players, and the players must be on the pitch as a consequence of their performance. This is performance-level football.”
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