Tanguy Ndombele is not having the best time at Galatasaray according to latest reports.
Since leaving Olympique Lyonnais in 2019 for Tottenham Hotspur to play with José Mourinho, things have not played out the way he hoped they would. He returned to Lyon on loan for the last six months of the 2021/22 season, spent the whole 2022/23 season at Napoli in the Italian Serie A, where he won the Scudetto title.
In the summer of 2023, he was loaned out to Turkish Super Lig outfit Galatasaray who saw his good form for the Serie A champions and approached Spurs to take him. The loan deal was for one year with an option to buy him permanently for £13.1 million.
Barely four months into the season, the Frenchman and the club now look like they will not continue beyond January. This is due to a fallout between Okan Buruk, manager of the club, and the player.
Reports claim that Ndombele has struggled to keep his weight under his required threshold of 75kg at Galatasaray. While he follows the meal plans for the players and one made specifically for him, he tends to indulge while away from their monitoring eyes which has constantly kept him overweight.
This issue has previously led to Buruk prohibiting him from training with the first team. The latest incident which reports describe as a “furious row” between both of them happened during Galatasaray’s last UEFA Champions League outing when at the hotel, Ndombele ordered a burger.
Issues about his fitness have been a major concern since the Mourinho days at Spurs. The Portuguese manager also had a falling out with him over his weight which was well publicised. Ex-Arsenal midfielder and Ndombele’s compatriot Emmanuel Petit in 2020 also slated the midfielder and claimed he was overweight.
Before his loan to Galatasaray, Ange Postecoglou raised concerns about his fitness during pre-season and at the start of the 2023/24 season. The Australian told the media that Ndombele was among the Tottenham players who were a little bit physically behind the rest.
Postecoglou added: “The way we play there’s a bit that I need to be strong on and that is that you’ve got to be at a certain physical level to play this kind of football.”
Ndombele has played just 93 minutes of league football for the Turkish side so far this season. The latest bust up could mean that his time at the club is done, giving Spurs another headache to deal with in the coming months.
