What happens next for Tanguy Ndombele after Antonio Conte and Lyon snubs give Tottenham dilemma

Tanguy Ndombele faces a crossroads in his career this summer after his loan return to Lyon did not provide a permanent escape from Tottenham Hotspur.

The 25-year-old is Spurs' record signing, having arrived from Lyon early in the summer of 2019 to much fanfare and with Mauricio Pochettino having championed his signing along with the club's technical performance director Steve Hitchen. Lyon announced the transfer as being worth "€60m with incentives which could reach as high as €10m", which meant Spurs could potentially end up paying a total of around £59.6m for the player, smashing the £42m they spent on Davinson Sanchez two years earlier in 2017.

The Frenchman was widely considered to be one of the most gifted young midfielders in Europe, having dazzled in the Champions League for Lyon, even if there were questions marks about his application, consistency and workrate over the years by various coaches. Tottenham decided that Pochettino was the man to inspire Ndombele to push himself to new heights and it was worth the gamble.

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It was a big step up for the then 22-year-old though and he later admitted to that within weeks of joining he had told friends that he had made a mistake and wanted to leave the club during pre-season due to the gruelling nature of the Argentine's sessions.

The trials and tribulations continued for the young France international over the coming season as struggled to settle and asked to leave the club after being unable to adapt to the new head coach Jose Mourinho's demands, culminating in a half-time substitution at Burnley and a public rebuke from the Portuguese before the midfielder was placed in