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Gabriel Magalhaes left Arsenal in the lurch at the Emirates after he was booked twice in three minutes to leave Manchester City playing against 10 men for the last half hour of their Premier League clash.

Arsenal had taken a deserved lead over the league leaders in the first half through Bukayo Saka’s left-footed strike.

That lead though was wiped out by Riyad Mahrez from the penalty spot just before the hour mark after a lengthy interruption from the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).

Gabriel then tried to scuff up the penalty spot before Mahrez took the kick, although it made little impact on the successful penalty, and was booked afterwards for dissent.

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Hard to accept it , but only God knows everything !
Proud to be part of this team!!! Amazing spirit !
We will keep working together , fighting until the end !! For this team I will run until I die !! Let’s keep improving in 2022!!! pic.twitter.com/kLAmmQEVLt

— Gabriel Magalhaes (@biel_m04) January 1, 2022

And almost directly from the restart, the centre-back was turned at pace by Gabriel Jesus and caught the striker with his arms, leaving referee Stuart Atwell with little choice other than to show the Arsenal defender his second yellow card.

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” said former Liverpool, Man City and England winger Steve McManaman on BT Sport‘s coverage of the game, where it initially appeared the booking had been for his work on the penalty spot.

“He deserves it, Gabriel. Fancy getting a yellow card for scuffing the spot up.

“I mean, talk about ill discipline. Talk about effectively throwing the game away. They deserve it, I’m sorry.

“The team were flying and he’s now to done this to his 10 teammates, absolutely ridiculous.”

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The City goal triggered a frantic period in the game as the referee struggled to keep control of the game and two more Arsenal players were booked.

Arsenal legend Martin Keown said: “It’s about keeping your head. You have to, the majority of your career you have to do that, manage the games.

“And now of course it’s almost given the game to City.”

Two more centre-backs in the BT Sport studio were no less damning of Gabriel’s behaviour.

“This is stupid. This is immature. This is petulant,” said Rio Ferdinand.

Joleon Lescott added: “This is crazy decision-making. Emotions were high, I get that, but the worrying thing is that it didn’t surprise us. We’ve seen that before, and that will happen again.”

Keown added at the time: “Now with 10 it’s going to be very difficult for Arsenal to get anything out of this game.”

And Keown was right, as City midfielder Rodri poked home an injury-time winner.

Granit Xhaka was not happy after watching the replay of his challenge on Bernardo Silva… ????

Penalty given. Penalty scored to make it 1-1. pic.twitter.com/7dyG4pRR8D

— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) January 1, 2022

“When you have already a yellow card, you have to control your emotions and be smart,” said Arsenal assistant manager Albert Stuivenberg, standing in for Mikel Arteta who was absent due to Covid.

“And I’m not sure why the first yellow card was given to Gabriel but I hear some different things about that, but it’s not important anymore. But if you have it of course you need to control your emotions. It’s something we need to learn.”

Stuivenberg later said that players had told him the yellow card was for dissent with Gabriel complaining about VAR’s failure in the first half to overturn the decision of the referee in the first half when City goalkeeper Ederson collided with Martin Odegaard, who, slow-motion replays showed, had got to the ball marginally before his opponent.

And after the break it was Bernardo Silva on the ground with the referee telling him to get him up – only for VAR Jarred Gillett to review the incident and tell Attwell to review what he saw as a clear and obvious error. He returned to the pitch to overturn his original decision and was confronted by Granit Xhaka, who was subsequently booked for his dissent.

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Arsenal 1-2 Manchester City (Saka, 31′; Mahrez (pen) 57′, Rodri 90+3′)

EMIRATES STADIUM — Manchester City came from behind to beat 10-man Arsenal at the Emirates with an injury time winner from Rodri bringing a dramatic end to a pulsating first Premier League game of 2022.

Bukayo Saka gave Arsenal a deserved lead in the first-half with a confidently taken finish, before Riyad Mahrez equalised from the penalty spot in the second and Rodri scored the winner in injury time. The result ensured that City extended their winning run in the Premier League and over Arsenal in the competition to 10 games. The absent Mikel Arteta will have been left hugely frustrated following an encouraging performance from his young side.

Chants of “VAR! VAR! VAR!” rang around the Emirates with 10 minutes on the clock when Ederson’s outstretched left foot sent Martin Odegaard tumbling. Australian VAR Jarred Gillet reviewed the incident and concluded, somewhat contentiously, that the Brazilian got his big toe to the ball first. New year, same old VAR controversy.

Not long after Ruben Dias went close to giving City the lead, beating Aaron Ramsdale to Raheem Sterling’s deep cross but glancing a header fractionally wide of the far post. The Portuguese howled at the sky in frustration and his exasperation was mirrored by Pep Guardiola on the touchline as Arsenal took control of the match, pinning their visitors deep inside their own half.

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Arsenal looked as though they were playing the game on double speed; they zipped the ball purposefully around City and descended on them like a swarm of red arrows when out of possession. A goal was the only thing missing and it duly arrived just past the half-hour mark when Saka swept home a first-time finish into the bottom corner after being found by Kieran Tierney.

Bukayo Saka with a perfectly placed first-time shot ????

Arsenal made a great start against City and it's their number seven who gets the goal! pic.twitter.com/OHWbeUBOOY

— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) January 1, 2022

Gabriel Martinelli went close to doubling Arsenal’s advantage twice before the half-time whistle. The Brazilian whipped an effort fractionally over the bar with his first attempt and then prodded the ball inches wide with his second after a frantic run had taken him from the halfway line to the edge of City’s six-yard-box in a matter of seconds.

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An inability to find a second goal cost Arsenal, who endured a nightmarish spell before the hour mark. First Mahrez equalised from the spot after Granit Xhaka had been adjudged to have hauled Bernardo Silva to the ground; then Martinelli missed a gilt-edged chance to restore Arsenal’s lead after Nathan Ake had scooped the ball off the goal-line; and finally, Gabriel Magalhaes was shown a second yellow card for fouling Gabriel Jesus. There were just 118 seconds between Mahrez’s penalty hitting the net and Gabriel’s red card.

Man City win it LATE at The Emirates ????

Rodri shoves the ball home and sparks wild celebrations…

11 wins in a row! pic.twitter.com/H9gaKAYqgo

— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) January 1, 2022

From that point on City dominated proceedings, although Guardiola will have been left frustrated at the lack of clearcut chances his side were able to create during the final half an hour. Finally, midway through the six minutes of additional time, Rodri prodded the winner beyond Aaron Ramsdale after Aymeric Laporte’s attempted effort had deflected into his path.

It was a fortuitous victory for City, as Guardiola acknowledged afterwards. “They were better,” he told BT Sport. “We faced a team that in the last years has struggled to be in the top four and they started this season in the bottom, bottom, bottom.

“And [now] they are in the top four and had six, seven days after Norwich, we had two days and a half and Brentford was so tough and we didn’t have energy. It was difficult, we didn’t have energy. We tried and tried and in the second half in one minute it changed.”

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McManaman: Lack of discipline cost Arsenal

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” said former Liverpool, Man City and England winger Steve McManaman on BT Sport’s coverage of the game.

“He deserves it, Gabriel. Fancy getting a yellow card for scuffing the spot up. I mean, talk about ill-discipline. Talk about effectively throwing the game away. They deserve it, I’m sorry.

“The team were flying and he’s now to done this to his 10 teammates, absolutely ridiculous.”

Rodri: We showed a champion’s mentality

“They are an unbelievable team. They showed why they are in that position [in the table]. The way they go with Mikel [Arteta] is huge,” said the match-winner Rodri to BT Sport after the game.

“They did a great game, but fortunately, we showed our personality. A champion’s personality, so we want to go again. We learned from past years that you have to push always, no matter what happens.

92:28 – Rodri's goal, timed at 92:28, is @ManCity's latest winning goal in a @premierleague match since Gabriel Jesus v Southampton in May 2018 (93:01), a goal which took the Citizens to 100 points in the 2017-18 season. Drama. pic.twitter.com/8jBbS3BVdp

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) January 1, 2022

“We were 1-0 down in the break and then suddenly things changed because of our mentality. We didn’t do a great game, but we pushed, we never dropped and we thought it was positive.

“I don’t know what I was doing there, Laporte also, but three more points is vital for us.”

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When Norwich City sold an Academy prospect earlier this season, they had a decision to make.

Use the money to invest in the first team on player wages or transfers – or look to the long term in the face of increasing pressure to compete in the Premier League?

The Canaries don’t have a billionaire backer and success needs to be sustainable, so a collective call was made to use the extra funds to invest in a £250,000 state-of-the-art training aid at their Colney base called the Soccerbot360.

The computerised football simulator – made famous by Ralf Rangnick after he introduced it at RB Leipzig – helps speed up reaction times and increases sharpness, with Borussia Dortmund swearing by their own version of the machine. Norwich are the first club in England to take the plunge, and will use it for every age group from under-9s.

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With Norwich struggling at the bottom of the league, it’s the sort of call that increasingly dominates boardroom discussions. Do we go big now – or look after the long-term?

It is a conversation that strikes right to the heart of the role of the sporting director, a job that has become increasingly vital to English football after years in which it was viewed with mistrust.

In the Premier League, 18 clubs have someone in that role and another – Newcastle – is about to appoint one. Most of their names are known to fans but they rarely swipe the headlines and most prefer to maintain a relatively low profile.

But as we approach the transfer window, it’s worth knowing that a fair proportion of the heavy lifting before deals are announced will have been done by sporting directors and their team of staff before the player’s jazzy announcement video lands on Twitter.

“In previous generations the director of football role wasn’t understood very well – in fact, we got away from the term because of the negative connotations that it had and trying to include technical or sporting director,” Mike Rigg, the founder and association executive of the Association of Sporting Directors (ASD), tells i.

“Now people realise how big the operations of a football club are. Some of these Category One academies have in excess of 60 full-time members of staff and all of the technical or sporting directors in the job have to sit between supporting the manager to be successful now but secondly, building a more sustainable business model that keeps the club going in the future.

“The red flag in the past was over player signings. Who is signing this player? Is it you, the manager, or the director of football?

“I’ve never come across a model in my entire career when the technical or sporting director is signing players and telling the manager ‘this is what you’ve got’. Every director I work with is about giving the manager ‘first and last’.

“First is – what do you want or need? What is the profile and position? They go and do their work and come back with, say, five options. We think the number one is the best option but there’s alternatives.

“It’s not this battle of power anymore. Now the relationships are close and there’s real trust there. Where it goes pear-shaped is when clubs don’t have that relationship.”

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Rigg is a vastly experienced operator, one of the men who helped create the modern-day Manchester City as Head of Player Acquisition in an era when they built a team that would go on to win the Premier League. He was also Technical Director at QPR and held similar roles at Fulham and Burnley, along with being Head of Talent ID at the Football Association.

He speaks with real authority about a role he’s done in various guises, from the early days building – symbolically and literally – Manchester City’s impressive City Group to being part of the process that saw Fulham promote Ryan Sessegnon to the first team as a 17-year-old when Slavisa Jokanovic was petitioning for a left-back signing to push the Cottagers over the line in promotion to the Premier League.

Football’s transformation in the last decade has seen data revolutionise the sport. Wyscout and inStat mean a wealth of video resources of players all over the world for clubs at every level to tap into.

The manager can’t be across all of that – and sporting directors are often responsible for overseeing it.

“One of the biggest challenges is that balance. You have the ownership and leadership at the top and what they want is to be successful and a long-term sustainable success,” he says.

“I always remember (at Manchester City) Khaldoon Al Mubarak was so enthusiastic about youth development. He never got the credit for it. They do write a cheque and support the manager that way but he also had a passion for youth development and bringing players through in that way.

“The manager cannot afford to take his eye off the next game and win so the sporting director has to have foot in both camps. They know they’re only going to be successful if their manager is winning games. But you’ve got to balance that off against future opportunities to support the club.”

The Norwich story throws a light on how some of the best operators work.

That they opted for something to benefit the long-term is no surprise to those who realise the importance of sporting director Stuart Webber at the club.

Webber is an example of someone treading the line between the club’s long-term interests and the need to deliver on-the-field success. The Soccerbot won’t win points, but it’s benefits could be measured

“It’s fascinating, what you see at Norwich. They sold a player – a youth player – and part of the discussion was ‘How are we going to invest this money long-term?’” Rigg says.

“They could have bought a player but they decided to invest in something which will improve their players over the long-term. We had an opportunity courtesy of Stuart of going down and seeing this thing in action.

“What I thought initially would be a gimmick to start off with was actually far from it. It was really interesting to see how they were going to use it to develop their players.”

The Association of Sporting Directors was set up to share knowledge and best practice and it’s brought executives together from all over the globe. It’s also helped lance a few misconceptions about the role.

“The sport has changed so much in the last five to ten years,” he says.

“I was talking to Jamie Fullarton, who is Technical Director at Walsall and has a coaching and managerial background but he is adamant that it’s not what he wants to do anymore – so if at any point our manager goes to Benfica or somewhere, he’s not stepping in to that job because it’s not what he wants to do,” Rigg says.

“If you look at the profile of people who do the job, it’s so wide and varied now. You’ve got Rebecca Caplehorn who comes from an accountancy background and is really good on the governance and regulations and organisation.

“Then you’ve got Dan Ashworth, who was a qualified school teacher, then you’ve got Brian Marwood who was a player. You’ve got a really diverse background of people in that role now and there are some really good people doing it now.

“People like Michael Edwards – you won’t see them on back pages or Sky Sports, it’s not what they do. But they are helping to get things moving at their clubs and when they get it right, you can see how well it works.”

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Pep Guardiola believes Mikel Arteta has created the best Arsenal team he has managed against and has labelled his friend the Gunners’ “most important player.”

Arteta will actually be missing when his team kicks off 2022 by welcoming the in-form league leaders at lunchtime on Saturday due to Covid-19.

But, with or without Arteta, Guardiola believes his former Manchester City assistant has turned Arsenal into a serious contender for honours and will offer him a stiff test as City seek an 11th consecutive league victory.

“I would say Mikel is the most important player they have,” said Guardiola. “I know his charisma and ideas and especially, his personality to do what he believes is the best for the team and the club.

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“No doubts about that. The most important thing is for him to stay well, the symptoms were low, everything is under control and he recovers and after the protocols he comes back to the place he loves, on the touchline and the sessions.

“But I know exactly which Arsenal is going to play, with or without Mikel. Since I arrived here, it is the best Arsenal I have ever seen in six seasons.

“That is why they are going to play with the people who support him. It will be a challenge for us but we have an incredible opportunity to maintain the distance and continue our run.”

The City manager credited Arteta with having changed the culture at the Emirates in a managerial reign that has had difficult moments and even seen his future questioned.

“It’s the best Arsenal, it’s not a secret,” said Guardiola. “They are in the top four. The energy they are playing with and the good ideas that Mikel has. To settle something you need time and I have the feeling that he changed the team, the club.

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“He changed the club. I am pretty sure he felt for many things, the way it started in Arsenal and maybe was not good and step by step he is doing well. So maybe right now we are going to face one of the one or two best teams in the Premier League right now in the best form.”

Guardiola has now compiled a league winning streak of 10 games for the fourth time in his City career – in comparison, no other manager has had more than two such runs in Premier League history.

The Catalan insists he does not dwell on such statistics and tries to retain balance in the good and bad times – a recipe that has certainly worked in his time with the champions.

“Thinking about the long runs is a stupid thing to think about, how many games,” he said. “It’s just – what’s next, be ready and the most important thing is the desire and the commitment.

“The team has to say, yeah, I want to do it, I want to go there, and try to go again and try to win the game. Everyone makes their incredible contribution and that is why we are where we are. It’s an unexpected situation.

“Not even a month ago we were four or five or six points behind Chelsea and Liverpool but we have 54 points more to play for.

“We are going to lose a game, because it’s going to happen, be calm, relax and try again, and next one, and try again. So don’t be extremely satisfied when the situation is going good and not extremely depressed when it isn’t.

“Because with this amount of games and all the competitions – and I learned a little bit last season because of the Covid situation – being relaxed is the best way to approach the next one.”

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Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel has downplayed suggestions by striker Romelu Lukaku in two separate interviews that he is unhappy with his part in the coach’s plans. But he admitted that reports of the player’s comments have created “unhelpful noise”.

The Belgium forward, who joined Chelsea last summer from Internazionale for £97.5million, told Sky Sport Italy in an interview that took place three weeks ago but surfaced this week: “I’m not happy with the situation at Chelsea. Tuchel has chosen to play with another system.”

Reports since then in Italy have even claimed that Chelsea could sell the player in the forthcoming transfer window. Lukaku also said after the 3-1 victory away to Aston Villa last weekend that he had spoken to Tuchel and “I told him [Tuchel] that I am multi-dimensional. It is about having clarity.”

Tuchel could have done without any added controversy ahead of the match against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge, which will no doubt be widely regarded as an eliminator for the unofficial role of closest pursuers to Manchester City.

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But the German pointed in rebuttal to the key part that Lukaku has played in Chelsea’s past two games, when he scored on his return to the team after illness as a substitute at Villa Park and again on Wednesday when he started the 1-1 draw at home to Brighton. And he insisted that the player had not expressed any unhappiness to him.

“We don’t like it because it brings noise that we do not need, it is not helpful,” Tuchel said. “But we don’t want to make more of it than it is. I don’t feel him unhappy, the exact opposite, that is why it is a surprise.

“If it’s an interview from an important player, I understand the process. That’s why it’s a lot of noise, not only a little bit. But we can take the time to try to understand what’s going on because it does not reflect his daily behaviour here. We will do it openly, as I think the relationship has always been.”

On the substance of the various reported claims by Lukau, Tuchel added: “He said we changed the system, but if you do the work you will find not a lot of system changes, if you find any.

“[Selling Lukaku] is clearly not my object and I will not comment at all. On the second point, the suggestion [after the Villa game] comes that the chat was that he was unhappy about how we used him – and that was not the chat. I have chats with a lot of players, how we want them to be in position, where they should be. This is an absolutely super-normal chat and we have it with Romelu.

“We have a [media] discussion now where it seems that we benched him because other players suited better our style of playing. But Romelu played when he came, then he got injured, then he caught Covid. And when he came back from Covid he played with no training at Villa and further with no training here [against Brighton].

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“That’s why I’m surprised and I don’t enter in these discussions ending like ‘There’s something going on.’ Because there’s absolutely zero ‘going on’. I don’t need to understand why he did it, and I do not have to. I don’t have a reason, and I don’t go into chats and think ‘Did he mean it another way?’ We have zero problem.

“Okay, he gave an interview, so maybe he has a problem and he needs to speak up. I don’t have one.”

Asked about possible repercussions on squad harmony, Tuchel said: “It’s not necessary to have harmony and love each other. It can be good to be on the edge.”

The best way forward for Lukaku, he added, was “training, training, playing, training, playing, training, sleeping, eating good, training, playing, drinking a lot of water, sleep, train – and don’t give interviews.”

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So that was Christmas.

18 games off, treatment tables full of injured players and a Covid civil war that has pitched managers against each other and ignited debate about whether the Premier League festive fixtures are a relic from a bygone era.

That we’ve emerged from a period of unprecedented pressure on the sport with fans still in grounds feels fairly miraculous. But surely the Premier League and its main players need to reflect on the chaotic nature of the last three weeks and learn a few lessons moving forward?

Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel led the way in condemning a fixture schedule which even their most partisan opponents would have to admit stretches players and squads to breaking point.

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It seemed like much of their ire was aimed at the Premier League itself but the authorities were a convenient, faceless scapegoat for the complaints. The real issue is that the clubs benefit so much from a TV deal that requires fixtures to be played so frequently over Christmas.

Amazon pays the best part of £90million for its fixture package, lured partly by the captive festive audience they are playing to in the games scheduled between Christmas and New Year. Sky and BT have hoovered up Boxing Day and New Year so what gives?

If clubs, managers and players want to start eating into the lucrative Christmas schedule then they’re going to have to accept the hit on their bottom line. And last time we looked, there wasn’t much appetite for that.

This is Tuchel’s first experience of England’s unique approach to Christmas football and he seems almost disbelieving of the demands made of his players and support staff. But the substance of his complaints seem to ignore the bigger picture of just how reliant the Premier League is on broadcaster cash which has turned it into a European powerhouse.

If those complaints ring hollow, the Premier League hasn’t helped itself by shrouding the decision-making process behind postponements in a level of uncertainty that doesn’t need to be there.

The rule is clear: any team with 13 fit outfield players is obliged to play. If there are fewer than that, they can request a postponement.

But the regulation needs refinement: anecdotally I’ve heard clubs complaining that support staff should count among that number, while for some clubs players who are testing negative for Covid but forced to isolate because they are not vaccinated are included in the list of unavailable players. Towards the end of the fixture programme injuries have been a bigger issue than Covid for many clubs in asking for postponements – but since when did clubs get mitigation for injury crises?

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Premier League clubs all have under-23 teams that compete regularly – why can players not be drafted into first team action if they’re short? Some have taken those steps – think Leeds bringing 15-year-old Archie Gray into their squad – while others have simply named fewer substitutes.

It makes the whole thing seem a mess when what should be happening is clubs forced to make public the list of available players they have so that any complaints of bias can be headed off at the pass.

Clubs point out medical confidentiality binds them when it comes to Covid but illnesses used to be made public when managers ran down the list of players out of matches. The second guessing of who has what seems much worse.

A dose of transparency would be the antidote to the festive mess – put the facts out there and let fans judge for themselves. It is not as if the Premier League hasn’t tried to do its best on occasions.

After Brentford’s game against Manchester United was called off at midnight in mid-December, the league defended a decision which left fans frustrated by pointing out that PCR tests were being analysed and a board meeting was called in the small hours to make the call as early as possible so plans could be changed.

The point here was that the league was trying to think of fans in their decision-making process. And after the farce of matches being called off a few hours before kick-off, there has been care taken to make calls earlier for the benefit of supporters. It feels like the process has been refined, just as we asked for it to be.

But looking at the league table and the accusations being levelled at clubs and managers, it’s difficult not to think the Premier League’s integrity has taken a knock as we depart the supposed season of goodwill.

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How do you explain the frustration with Tanguy Ndombele since he arrived at Tottenham two years ago? Moussa Sissoko is a good place to start.

In August, the Watford midfielder returned to north London just days after ending his five-year association with Spurs. And in the second half, when he sent one of his classic long-range attempts hurtling into the north stand, his efforts were greeted with rapturous cheers from the home supporters.

What transformed Sissoko into an (admittedly ironic) cult hero was precisely that – his effort. Spurs have long required a midfielder who is industrious, but is also capable of unmatched vision, and what he may have lacked in the latter, he made up for in the first department.

Which brings us back to Ndombele. Though he plays a different role from Sissoko, the £63m signing has now played under four permanent managers, several of whom have questioned his contribution. After one underwhelming performance against Burnley in 2020, that famous motivator Jose Mourinho surmised that Spurs “didn’t have a midfield”, adding: “I know adapting to the Premier League is difficult, but he [Ndombele] has had enough time and a player of his potential has to give us more than he is giving us.”

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Antonio Conte was more tactical in his put-downs, when asked ahead of Saturday’s trip to Watford what part Ndombele had to play within the squad. “He is a midfielder” was his response. The only kind way of looking at that answer is that he misinterpreted the question, but the numbers tell their own story.

Since Conte’s arrival, Ndombele has been an unused substitute five times. He has only started two games – and has been taken off in both. One was the shock defeat to NS Mura, the other the 2-2 draw with Liverpool in which Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg was not fit to start. The Frenchman has made three further appearances from the bench.

That apparent struggle to complete 90 minutes, which has been an issue since he was first signed under Mauricio Pochettino, has to influence any decision Spurs make on his future as the January transfer window opens.

Conte has made it clear that Hojbjerg and Oliver Skipp are his preferred two in midfield. Ndombele, meanwhile, has previously made it clear that he has struggled to settle – the Tottenham Hotspur: All or Nothing documentary showed him voicing his unhappiness in a conversation with chairman Daniel Levy.

Ndombele’s Spurs career by numbers

• Games: 86
• Games missed (injury/illness): 17
• Goals: 10
• Assists: 8

It is hard to see how those two views are reconciled, especially when Harry Winks is brought into the equation. “I find players that are reliable,” Conte said, in praise of the England international. “And then I can count on them.” He would not be drawn on counting on Ndombele, of whom he only said it was “not right” to guarantee that he’d be staying on past January.

If Spurs cut their losses, they’ll be left with a few sparkling memories: that ingenious flicked goal against Sheffield United, his extraordinary flourishes of skill against Chelsea and a goal on a debut against Aston Villa which promised so much.

There is an argument that aside from Harry Kane and the Dele Alli of old, Ndombele is the most naturally gifted player at the club. Yet the highlights reel is short, and the number of games he has changed has been considerably fewer.

Take, for instance, in the final days of Pochettino, it was put to him that Ndombele had made a big difference in a 2-1 defeat to Liverpool. “Big difference?” he replied. “Doing what?”

And that, regardless of raw skill, is how players are ultimately judged.

from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/32LGQbg