Tanguy Ndombele’s first season at Tottenham hasn’t quite gone to plan, but despite only starting 12 league games this term, the 23-year-old is attracting interest from Europe’s elite.

Perhaps it’s something to do with the economic issues that have come with the pandemic, but the two interested parties in Ndombele have apparently been trying to broker a swap deal to land the midfielder rather than paying a fee for the Frenchman.

What’s the story then?

We heard last month that Barcelona are after Ndombele with a swap deal after Dan Kilpatrick’s report in the Standard.

Watch Tottenham Hotspur Videos With StreamFootball.tv Below

It has been claimed that the players Barca would be willing to offer are either Philippe Coutinho, Nelson Semedo, Samuel Umtiti or Ivan Rakitic.

However, Inter Milan are also looking to broker a similar type of deal for Ndombele with Milan Skriniar being used as their bargaining chip according to Di Marzio.

Simple choice

Unless Barcelona offer two or three of those players for Ndombele, this should be an easy choice.

Now, this isn’t to say that any of Barca’s aforementioned players aren’t fantastic, they’ve all been part of title-winning sides, but they don’t quite tick the boxes that Spurs need right now.

After Jan Vertonghen’s departure, the one thing Tottenham need most is a centre-back, especially when you consider they conceded eight more league goals this term than they did in 2018/19, while their leaky defence also saw them crash out of the Champions League early too, conceding twice in the opening 20 minutes to Leipzig in the vital game that decided their fate.

So if Spurs are to use one of these swap deals as a chance to replace Vertonghen it becomes a choice between Umtiti and Skriniar, and there is a clear victor there.

Umtiti has fallen out of favour at Camp Nou for a reason, he started just 10 league games this term, keeping just two clean sheets in those matches, while averaging 0.8 tackles per game and 1.5 fouls, showing that he’s been completely mistiming his challenges all year.

Skriniar meanwhile has started 30 games at the heart of Serie A’s best defence averaging 1.2 tackles per game, keeping 10 clean sheets during that time.

Factor in the fact that Skriniar is younger than Umtiti and the choice is simple.