Mourinho used his post-match press conference to pointedly remind ‘somebody’ of his expectations, placing the blame squarely on Ndombele’s shoulders for an anaemic performance, despite partner Oliver Skipp also getting hooked at the break.
It might be lazy to instantly draw parallels with Mourinho’s barely-veiled attacks on Paul Pogba during his tenure as Manchester United manager and his current campaign against Ndombele, but only because they point towards a similar stand-off developing and say so much about how Mourinho has lost the ability to navigate the current era of football.
One of the decisive moments in Pogba’s relationship with his previous manager was what might have been taken as a negative indictment of Mourinho’s style, the World Cup winner arguing that ‘when we are at home we should attack, attack, attack’ after a dour 1-1 draw against Wolves (as per the BBC).
As if to prove Pogba's point, Mourinho’s extravagant decision to stack the team with five centre backs at Burnley, with the rookie Skipp deeper than Ndombele, meant the former Lyon man was not only relying on wayward passes from Skipp and the middling Jan Vertonghen which never came but also had limited freedom to accelerate Tottenham’s play in their own half with his trademark surging runs.
It’s no coincidence that one of Ndombele’s best performances of the season under Mourinho came as a virtual defensive midfielder against Norwich at Carrow Road, a game in which he had pretty much no help from those close to him positionally.
Admittedly, Ndombele can sometimes appear to delegate such boring defensive tasks as ‘tracking back’ to the mere mortals on the pitch, but Mourinho has experimented with other square pegs in round holes for much less net gain, as shown by his continued attempts to turn Lucas Moura into Gabriel Batistuta.
Herein lies the central problem - even if Mourinho could consistently make that compromise with Ndombele, and in doing so unlock his unique passing range and unerring ability to find Serge Aurier in heaps of space, he just wouldn’t bother.
Mourinho views the central midfielder as a sort of monk, characterised by rigorous self-discipline and a devotion to the Church of Defensive Positioning, and hence was able to sniff at Pogba’s success in a freer role under Didier Deschamps at the World Cup as an indulgence, brought on by the heightened ‘emotion’ of the format.
His success with Scott McTominay at United, and his miraculous ability to coax some reasonable performances from Eric Dier this time around, somewhat vindicates this belief, but a defensive identity is so systematised throughout his teams in a relatively cavalier footballing epoch that supremely talented players with the irrepressible urge to ‘attack, attack, attack’ are rarely treated with patience.
It used to be for Mourinho that this asceticism was justified by results, but with a point away at Turf Moor being hailed as ‘hard-earned’ by commentators for the man who once scaled the heights of a 95-point-season, and with Harry Kane and Son Heung-min’s injuries depriving him of a traditional outlet, he has had to experiment with new and uncomfortable solutions to get Spurs creating chances again.
68% - Tanguy Ndombele completed 63 of the 92 dribbles he attempted in Ligue 1 last season, resulting in a 68% success rate - this is the highest success rate of any player in Europe's top five league last season to attempt as many dribbles. Sixpence. pic.twitter.com/LbPDYvwmiO
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) July 3, 2019
Ndombele, even at 70% fitness, is one of the few players who can reintroduce this Tottenham side to such alien concepts as one-touch passing and positive, patient build-up play.
Yet as with Pogba before him, Mourinho is happy to sacrifice a player who can play incisive, line-breaking passes for an offensively-limited ball-winner, and even happier to ostracise Ndombele, clearly working hard to make his way back from injury, as lazy in doing so.
Let’s hope that there’s a different ending to this episode.
Source : 90min