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Arsenal fan Darren Bent admits it was ‘easy’ to reject West Ham and sign for Tottenham
DARREN BENT admits it was an easy decision to join Tottenham - despite growing up as a fan of north-London rivals Arsenal.
Bent joined Tottenham from Charlton back in 2007 for a then club-record fee of £16.5million.
He had a mixed spell at White Hart Lane, scoring 25 goals in 79 appearances in all competitions.
Bent, who is currently a free agent after leaving Derby at the end of last season, was reminiscing over his career on Sky Sports’ Goals on Sunday programme.
And he revealed how he turned down Tottenham’s rivals West Ham to join Spurs.
I was an Arsenal fan but it’s about career and playing for a massive football club. At the end the decision was pretty easy
Presenter Ben Shephard asked Bent: “You moved from Charlton to Spurs, that was a big move at the time.
“Do you remember that sort of time? We’ve got some footage of you as a whippersnapper. Do you remember that day?”
Bent replied: “I do remember that day to be fair.
“I remember I was torn at the time because I was going to West Ham funnily enough.
“I’d been to meet [then West Ham manager] Alan Curbishley, come back from holiday, obviously I knew Alan Curbishley really well, he had taken me from Ipswich to Charlton.
“But obviously I ended up going to Spurs because obviously I felt Spurs were going in the right direction, they finished fifth.
“I was competing with some top strikers there in [Dimitar] Berbatov, [Jermain] Defoe and [Robbie] Keane.”
Shephard then intervened and said: “Arsenal fan as a kid so was there any sort of split there?”
But Bent admits he put his career ahead of his boyhood fandom.
“No not really, Spurs are a massive club,” he replied.
“Yeah I was an Arsenal fan but it’s about career and playing for a massive football club.
“At the end the decision was pretty easy to be fair.
“To be fair for my development as well I wanted to go there and compete with these kind of guys.
“As I said Keane, Berbatov and Defoe - it doesn’t get much better than that.”