For most of his 18 months at Tottenham Hotspur, Tanguy Ndombele had looked off the pace, unfit, uninterested and seemingly on course to be one of the club's worst ever singings.
That came off the back of a record £65million deal to land him from Lyon in the summer of 2019 with a view to becoming Tottenham's midfield powerhouse and only led to a highly disappointing first season at White Hart Lane where he struggled to stay on the field for 90 minutes, let alone dominate it.
As recently as the summer he was out of favour in the first team, marginalised by Jose Mourinho and seemingly on the way out.