Who is Clinton N’Jie?

With Nacer Chadli picking up an injury in the 0-0 draw with Liverpool, added to Son Heung-Min’s long-term absence, it looks like our new Cameroonian starlet might be thrust into the limelight sooner than we might have expected.

But who is Clinton N’Jie, and what is he all about?

We’ve seen glimpses of what he can do. Most notably in the 4-1 demoliton of Man City, where he combined with Erik Lamela to score the fourth and put the icing on the cake of what was a superb victory.

He is not without his faults though, and within 15 minutes of coming on in the Liverpool game, he’d given the ball away more times than I care to remember. He also missed a good chance to score, but you could also argue that Simon Mignolet had a great game, and perhaps on another day, it would’ve gone in.

N’Jie has the potential to be a real hit at Spurs

We’ve given him the number 14 shirt, which resonates particularly well with me. This shirt is often reserved for the better players (possibly) with my personal hero David Ginola wearing it, and then in more recent times Luka Modric (let’s just forget about Hossam Ghaly). Perhaps it means nothing, its just a number after all, but I’m fairly superstitious, and wouldn’t it be fantastic if Clinton could live up to his predecessors in that shirt (and not ‘do a Ghaly’).

He impressed in a Lyon side last season that oh-so very nearly pipped PSG to the French title, scoring seven goals as well as creating seven assists, in only 15 starts. He has lightning fast pace, as we’ve seen when he’s come on for Spurs in recent games, most notably I think in the 2-2 with Swansea. We brought him and Andros Townsend on and that extra injection of speed almost helped us score the winner – we definitely ended the game in the ascendancy.

In terms of his shooting ability, he ended last season with 73% of his shots going on target. Just to gauge how impressive this is, consider that Anthony Martial, who is currently tearing up the Premier League with Manchester United, ended the season with only 56%. In fact, the only player in Ligue 1 last season to have a better rate of shots on target was Zlatan Ibrahimovic with 74%. Impressive indeed.

Upon signing for Spurs, he claimed that he snubbed interest from bitter rivals Arsenal. Whether true or not, it appears that he certainly knows the right things to say to get him into the Spurs faithful’s good books early on in his Tottenham career.

Time will tell if he can get accustomed to the physicality of the Premier League, but he certainly has all the attributes to succeed, and is a fine addition, in my opinion, to a very young, but hard-working squad. And with injuries to key players and games coming thick and fast, it looks like he’s going to get his chance to prove himself sooner rather than later.