Tottenham should accelerate Georges-Kévin Nkoudou’s departure

Likely already slated for a move this summer, Georges-Kévin Nkoudou seems eager to sever his ties with Tottenham sooner rather than later.

As the Evening Standard reports, the Tottenham winger recently got caught wearing a Chelsea kit while taking a photo with a fan.

To call this an unforced error seems like an understatement. Footballers simply don’t wear other clubs’ kits, at least not in public. Some might admit to being fans of clubs other than the one they currently play for. Some want to show loyalty to a former club. None but the most moronic players don the colors of a rival and expect to be able to shrug it off.

Nkoudou’s explanation — that he was merely wearing a gift provided to him by former Olympique de Marseille teammate and current Chelsea backup striker Michy Batshuayi — doesn’t hold a lot of water. He must have understood that wearing this shirt and then going so far as to voluntarily have his picture taken would ruffle feathers.

Those feathers, incidentally, do not need further ruffling. Perhaps the biggest irony of this whole Nkoudou debacle is that, based on his limited playing time with Spurs since his move last August and Mauricio Pochettino’s tacit dissatisfaction with him, it is next to impossible that a club like Chelsea would pay him to wear their colors. He is, in all likelihood, not good enough for the Premier League, much less the reigning champions.

It’s conceivable that none of this is an accident, that Nkoudou too is unhappy with his first season with the club and hopes to hasten his own exit. Stunts like this certainly make it more and more likely that the club will anxiously seek those willing to pay money for an infrequently used substitute with a potentially bad attitude.

Nkoudou’s gaff indirectly highlights a problem with Tottenham’s recruitment of late. The France under-21 international is just the latest pacey winger to suffer through an acrimonious (presumptive) end to his time at Spurs.

Pochettino’s game favors full-backs and centralized playmakers over traditional wingers, but that doesn’t mean the Spurs don’t need that type of player. NKoudou’s recruitment, as well as Clinton Njie’s a season before, suggest that Pochettino knows he needs width available to him, even if it’s only off the bench.

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Unfortunately, neither Njie nor Nkoudou filled that void, just as Aaron Lennon and Andros Townsend failed to do before them.

Based on what we know and have seen of those players, it seems as if Pochettino’s expectations are merely very high and not unrealistic. If Spurs want to find a capable player for that role they might have to splurge in the coming transfer window. Looking for supposed bargains like Njie and Nkoudou might be too risky a minefield to traverse while Spurs are ascendant.