Rumor mongering: Barcelona could offer Ndombele an escape from Tottenham

In these COVID-drenched times, and considering the financial straits that just about every football club is in at the moment, you should probably be pretty skeptical of any transfer rumor that may come flitting out of the wilds of Bat Country.

Why? Because literally nobody has any idea what the financial situation is going to look like for any given club when the transfer window opens. Not only that, but we don’t even know when the transfer window is going to open, or for how long, or whether the gradually expanding bubble that football has been immersed in over the past decade is getting ready to pop.

But do you think that means the transfer rumor mill is going to stop grinding? Hoo buddy.

So here’s one for you to chew on as you prepare for your first Easter in social isolation. According to L’Equipe, here quoted by Get French Football News, Tanguy Ndombele is once again the subject of a transfer rumor. In this one, Barcelona is considering giving the Frenchman an escape route from Jose Mourinho and his doghouse.

We can probably safely assume that there’s a typo in that tweet, in that Ndombele “doesn’t intend to have a 2nd season at Spurs if conditions don’t change.” And if that sentiment is true, you can understand why, especially after Mourinho threw Tanguy under the bus before the season shut down.

But I’m still skeptical that Tanguy will be sold this summer, very much so. For starters, there’s the whole aforementioned coronavirus-related financial situation that nobody has any idea about, which hangs like an anvil over the entire summer. Those same financial restrictions are going to mean that everyone will likely have much less money to spend this summer even under the best of circumstances, and Daniel Levy absolutely isn’t going to want to let Ndombele, Spurs’ record signing, go for anything less than what he paid for him. I’m skeptical that Barcelona can even afford him at the moment.

But also, if you’re an optimistic person, the unofficial workout that Tanguy and Mourinho got busted for last week is... kind of a good sign? If Mou is willing to bend a couple of governmental regulations to work one on one with Ndombele it does suggest that just maybe he’s willing to give things the old college try to see if he can get Tanguy back up to speed by the time football starts up again.

Oh, and along those lines, there’s this follow-up tweet.

FFS, Mou.

I don’t doubt that there are plenty of teams that are hovering like vultures ready to strike if Tanguy really does want to cut bait and run, and Barca would be one of the teams that would have as good a shot as any club of going in for him. But until we have further clarity over what the transfer landscape looks like, I’d say don’t get in a tizzy about ANYTHING coming out, in the French transfer rumor landscape or elsewhere.