Former Tottenham Hotspur record signing Tanguy Ndombele continues to struggle to get his faltering career back on track.

Spurs paid what was then a club-record €70m (£62.8m) to sign the Frenchman from Lyon in the summer of 2019, just months after the Lilywhites had finished runner-up in the Champions League.

Ndombele was one of the most sought-after midfielders in the world at the time, and his signing was supposed to take Tottenham to the next level.

However, the midfielder never really managed to fulfil his potential at N17. While he showed brief glimpses of promise under Jose Mourinho as number 10 in the 2020-21 season, he eventually went down as one of the biggest flops in the club’s history.

Former Tottenham star Tanguy Ndombele has a trial at Rubin Kazan after being released by Nice

While the midfielder was never short of technical quality, there were always question marks about his work rate and his desire, and his career trajectory over the last two years shows why several Spurs managers were not convinced by him.

Following loan spells in Napoli and Galatasaray, Ndombele’s Tottenham contract was terminated in 2024, and he signed for Nice as a free agent.

However, the 29-year-old only played 26 times for the Ligue 1 club across two seasons before being released this summer.

According to L’Equipe, the former Spurs man has now started a trial at Rubin Kazan. If Kazan offer him a contract, Ndombele will become the first French player to sign for a Russian club since the country’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Mauricio Pochettino recruited poorly in his final transfer window as Spurs boss

A lot of Tottenham fans look back with rose-tinted glasses on at Mauricio Pochettino’s time at the club, and understandably so. The Argentine consistently took Spurs to heights they have not been able to reach since, culminating in the 2019 Champions League final.

However, it is worth remembering that Pochettino was manager, not just head coach, by the end at Tottenham, which means that he had plenty of say in the transfer market.

Following the Champions League final, Spurs signed Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso, Ryan Sessegnon, and Jack Clarke in the summer of 2019, all of whom flopped.

If Pochettino had got his way and had Spurs managed to pull off a club-record Paulo Dybala deal before the transfer deadline in 2019, that also could have ended in disaster, looking at how the Argentine’s career has gone since then.