It didn’t take long, and it was probably quite predictable, but Tanguy Ndombélé has already made headlines in Italy.
The Tottenham player was sent on loan to Napoli for the season, with the Serie A side able to make the move permanent at any time for a fee of around €30m.
Whether they do remains to be seen, but what is clear is that Ndombélé started off on the right foot on Wednesday evening, as the Italian club faced Juve Stabia in a friendly.
The Frenchman found the back of the net in spectacular fashion, and played well enough to force a journalist, Valter De Maggio, to openly present his excuses to the Tottenham man when talking to Radio Kiss Kiss, relayed by Napoli Piu.
He said: “I have to say my mea culpa for what I said about the midfielder Ndombélé and I have no problem recognising my mistake in some of my evaluations. I said I’d never break up a midfield of Stanislav Lobotka, Frank Anguissa and Piotr Zielinski to bring in Ndombélé.
“After seeing what the former Tottenham man did against Juve Stabia, I changed my mind. How can you keep such a player out? The French footballer, for all the qualities he has, must absolutely also be a protagonist of the new Luciano Spalletti branded Napoli.”
Ndombélé never managed to convince any of the managers that came after Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham, which includes the current man in charge, Antonio Conte.
The midfielder spent the second half of last season on loan at Lyon, returning to his old club to see if he could get his career back on track.
He somewhat managed it, even if he didn’t set the league alight, and gave Napoli enough reasons to negotiate the loan with Tottenham for this campaign.
