Tanguy Ndombele has had one of the best career transformations in recent history with the former Lyon man now the go-to player for Jose Mourinho.
He came off the bench to score twice as Tottenham beat Wycombe in the FA Cup yesterday.
A year ago, he was struggling to impress at the club, but now he is one of the first names on the team sheet.
His poor start could have cost him his Tottenham career when the club made the ever-demanding Mourinho their new manager.
The expectations from the Portuguese made him clash with the midfielder, but Ndombele has responded well to his poor start to his Premier League career.
Sky Sports has had a looked at how he has turned his north London career around and praised him.
Adam Bate ran through how impressive he has been, including his special dribbles that helps Spurs open up teams, among others.
He wrote on Sky Sports: “Ndombele’s story is all the more enjoyable given the redemptive nature of it. The fear was that this £53.8m record signing, the man Mourinho once bemoaned as always injured, would be consigned to history as an expensive Tottenham mistake, particularly after being hauled off for a particularly poor showing at Burnley in March.
“His failure to register a single sprint in that game at Turf Moor seemed to sum up the lethargy that had enveloped his game, not only limiting his effectiveness but setting him on a collision course with the demanding Mourinho from which he could not deviate.
“But the response has come, from the controversial personal training sessions in the park to the evident appetite to adapt, noted by Mourinho when discussing Ndombele in September.”
“Some of it is there in the numbers. Ndombele completes a dribble more than twice as often as any other Tottenham player. That alone helps to break the lines and open up the game for his team.
He continued “Ndombele dribbles in unusual areas and can beat the opposition press by doing so. It is rare to see a player be able to dribble so effectively in central zones and he can do it when operating in that deeper midfield role as well as when deployed behind the forwards.
“Interestingly, when looking for evidence of improvement in Ndombele’s performance, it is not there in these key areas of his game – dribbling and ball carrying. He was delivering on his core strengths even as his overall contribution was being questioned.
“While his recent goal glut is a convenient moment to celebrate his growing importance to Tottenham, his general play on the ball has not been the biggest aspect of change.
“It is off the ball that Ndombele has been earning Mourinho’s trust, showing that he can maintain concentration for extended periods of time. These are the qualities that he demands in his players.
“Ndombele has already covered more ground this season than he did last, despite being yet to register the same number of minutes that he did in his debut campaign. Most notably, the number of high-intensity sprints – a key criticism in the past – has quadrupled. There is more energy in Ndombele’s game and it is making a difference.”