Jose Mourinho's face said it all when the name Tanguy Ndombele came up.

Tottenham Hotspur fans had been screaming for the 22-year-old France international to start games for them to add drive, creativity and power to their midfield.

Yet when the team to face Brighton was announced at 11.30am, Ndombele's name was absent. He wasn't even on the bench.

The word from the club was clear, that the young Frenchman was not injured. Reports from France suggested he was struggling with some discomfort in his adductor muscle.

Ndombele trains after missing game vs Brighton

Yet at 2.45pm, Ndombele was out on the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium pitch, going through a training session with players such as Erik Lamela, Eric Dier, Victor Wanyama, Son Heung-min and youngsters Oliver Skipp, Troy Parrott and Dennis Cirkin after Tottenham's 2-1 victory against Brighton.

It was not light stuff and Ndombele did not look restricted as he ran, passed and attempted to block team-mates' passes in a variety of exercises on the pitch.

That's why when asked about Ndombele's absence straight after the match, Mourinho looked like a man who wanted to say a lot more than he did.

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"I cannot say he is injured, in five minutes we start a training session and you can go to the stands and watch it, he is going to be training normally so I cannot say he is injured," he said.

"I can say that yesterday he told me he was not feeling in condition to play the game. Not based on injuries, based on fears of previous injuries that he has had since the beginning of the season.

"Feeling not ready to start the game, but I cannot say he is injured, I can say he is not in condition to start the game, which is different."

Doubts over Ndombele's fitness have dogged his first five months at the club. During the club's pre-season tour, the club record signing admitted to football.london in Singapore that he was finding Mauricio Pochettino's training sessions "very hard".

He has tired quickly in matches in the Premier League and has rarely finished a game. In fact he hasn't played a full 90 minutes in the league in the past three months.

The Frenchman has suffered from a couple of thigh and groin muscles as his body adjusts to the fast and furious pace of the English game.

Mourinho told football.london this week that while Ndombele is a "fantastic talent" he needs to adapt to the physicality of the new football culture he has signed up for and attack it with a "Premier League mentality".

Footballers often play through aches and pains. Pochettino once said the key to getting more out of Harry Winks was convincing the young midfielder that he would always play with pain in his ankle and not to fear it or use it as an excuse to not play.

For Ndombele, he has come into top flight football relatively late in his career.

As a child he was reportedly passed over by various youth academies for being out of shape or overweight. He played for Amiens' B team in the fourth division of French football and it was not until he was almost 19 that he started his first match for the side.

It wasn't until 2016 that he finally burst to life in the first team and subsequently Lyon were impressed and loaned him and then made his move permanent.

(Image: Tottenham Hotspur FC/Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images)

Ndombele turns 23 on Saturday, the day Spurs travel to Norwich to play their next Premier League game.

He has come a long way in a short space of time on the pitch but his body and mentality is still trying to catch up. Those early complaints about his fitness and ability to deal with a step up in physicality appear to have stuck around.

The suspensions of Harry Winks and Moussa Sissoko mean the birthday boy may well start against Norwich and he will have to be wary of Mourinho, a man who holds a strong dislike for anyone who isn't giving their all for the cause and putting their body on the line for their team-mates.

Ndombele would be well served to see how his new head coach has spoken about others at former clubs who he felt were hiding behind injuries or not keeping themselves in the best possible physical condition.

Mourinho is still in his honeymoon stage at Spurs and will not come out and criticise any of his players just yet.

The clues were all there though and barely concealed in his praise for a player who didn't even play on the day - Erik Lamela.

"I'm very happy with the guys, even one who didn't play. Lamela, he was fantastic. I think it was 56 or 57 days that he didn't train with the team. He was injured, he was training individually," he said.

"He trained with the team twice, after 57 days he trained twice with the team and he came to me and said 'I think you need me because you are in trouble with injuries, suspensions, no Sonny. If you want me I am there. If you need me for 10 or 15 minutes I'm there'.

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"So he was there if we needed him to try to score a goal. He was there. That's the kind of thing that touches me. I like players who make sacrifices for the team."

Tanguy Ndombele, you have been warned.