Tottenham won’t see Georges-Kévin N’Koudou anytime soon due to a language barrier.
Since signing a five-year deal on transfer deadline, Tottenham’s French Under-21 international Georges-Kévin N’Koudou has yet to feature with Spurs.
Things are going well training-wise but he isn’t 100 percent fit yet after missing all of Spurs’ pre-season training program and their Australian tour.
On top of N’Koudou reaching full fitness he is working on his English. Obviously, he only speaks French.
“It is going well. He is very young, he speaks only French, it’s a big problem for him,” Mauricio Pochettino said at his pre-match news conference (via Evening Standard).
“He is learning quickly, but he is still settling into the team. He needs to work more.”
“I think maybe he will be ready to be selected next week, maybe but not sure.”
Speaking a whole new language takes time and although Pochettino considers it a big problem, so long as N’Koudou gets the basic gist of the English language he should be fine.
The Frenchman’s fitness levels and learning a new language were delayed when Olympique Marseille underwent a hierarchy change, preventing Spurs to complete a deal until transfer deadline day.
But even if the Ligue 1 club didn’t have front office problems, N’Koudou still would have taken a while to speak English well enough.
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At the very least, the 21-year-old understands what his coaches and teammates are saying. He just can’t respond which is what Pochettino claims is a problem.
Being able to communicate on the pitch is paramount for a team’s success. Spurs knew that this would be a work in progress when they wanted to sign N’Koudou and have dealt with the situation well.
If Pochettino is considering selecting Georges-Kévin N’Koudou next week, the French winger would be available against Middlesbrough or CSKA Moscow.
It would give him at least one full month to quickly get settled into a new environment, work on his fitness and speak basic English.
A good example of a Spurs player experiencing a language barrier was Érik Lamela when he arrived three years ago.
It took a while (at least two seasons) for Lamela to feel comfortable speaking English and conduct post-match interviews. Now, in his fourth season, the Argentine winger can speak English well.
Hopefully N’Koudou picks things up much quicker in getting acclimated to his new surroundings and speaking a second language.
But even if he doesn’t he has only missed two games since joining Spurs on August 31st. Which hasn’t impacted the team, as it has only been a month-and-a-half since the season began.
It’s a shame that N’Koudou’s debut has been put off for the time being (though he could show up next week).
At the same time, it’s to be expected that foreign players will take a while to embed themselves in a new environment.
Should Pochettino decide to bring N’Koudou into the team slowly, Spurs already have cover in Son Heung-Min and Moussa Sissoko behind Christian Eriksen and Lamela.
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