Luca Marchetti has dropped an update on the future of Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Tanguy Ndombele.

What's the talk?

In recent comments made to Italian radio station Radio Marte (via Sport Witness), the Sky Sport Italia reporter revealed that SS Napoli hold a €25m (£22m) option to buy the 25-year-old France international upon the completion of his season-long loan spell at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium in the summer of 2023.

Regarding the future of the midfielder, Marchetti said:

"How is the redemption of Tanguy Ndombele formulated? Napoli, if they want, will be able to keep the player for around €25m: it's a very high ransom. The Frenchman, who was and will again be one of the best midfielders in Europe, was bought for €70m by Tottenham, let's not forget that.

"Right now, Spurs don't see him. They won't throw him away, though. Ndombele is valuable and these €25m are not random: they are the amount that Tottenham have budgeted for him. They don't want to lose out, in short.

"Asking that much is a way of protecting themselves. If Ndombele were to improve at Napoli, Tottenham would collect this money and not lose out. Napoli has the right of redemption, not the obligation: this is another aspect to specify. Paratici chatted about him with various Italian teams in the summer: but nobody, except Napoli, was too heart-warming."

Paratici masterclass

Considering just how poor Ndombele has been for Tottenham ever since his £63m move to north London back in the summer of 2019, while it would clearly be a financial hit for Spurs to sell the Frenchman for £41m less than they paid for his services, should Paratici manage to get £22m for the midfielder, it would nevertheless still be a masterclass by the Italian sporting director.

Indeed, over his two and a half seasons at Spurs, the £26m-rated talent failed to ever live up to his astronomical price tag, starting just 46 Premier League fixtures for the club, as well as averaging underwhelming SofaScore match ratings of 6.85 in 2019/20, 6.90 in 2020/21 and 6.58 in 2021/22 - hardly proving worth his fee or his extortionate £200k-per-week wage.

Things have not exactly improved for the 25-year-old following his move to Italy, with Ndombele having started just two Serie A games for Luciano Spalletti's side - as well as being hooked at half-time in a 1-1 draw with Lecce - and averaged an extremely disappointing SofaScore match rating of just 6.63 - ranking him as Napoli's fifth-worst performer in the league.

As such, exactly why the Gli Azzurri would be willing to spend around £22m on making the midfielder's loan deal a permanent move next summer is something of a mystery, however, should Paratici convince them to do so, it would quite clearly be one of the sporting director's best pieces of business since his arrival at Tottenham last summer.