Tottenham Hotspur have missed out on a number of good signings over the years. They’ve also dodged a few bullets when it comes to nearly signing players that perhaps wouldn’t have been a good fit. We’ll let you decide which camp Troy Deeney falls into on that front.
Troy Deeney has played for a fair few clubs throughout his career, but is of course best known for his time at Watford, where he made over 400 appearances and scored 140 goals.
He served the Hornets for six seasons in the Premier League, and hit almost a half-century of his goals in the top flight for the club.
Things could have been very different, though, had reported interest from Arsenal or Tottenham led to a transfer in 2020.
Apparently, when Watford were relegated at the end of the 2019/20 campaign, the two London rivals came calling for Deeney, and he has told talkSPORT how far that pursuit actually went at the time.
When asked if he spoke to Mikel Arteta or Jose Mourinho about the transfers, Deeney said: “Yeah, I had a chat with Jose. I didn’t speak to Mikel, that was more board-level interest at Arsenal. They were dealing with it, thinking about how we could make it happen.
“Obviously I wasn’t going to these places looking to start, so it was kinda like the clubs were thinking, ‘Yeah let’s do it, as long as [his attitude is right].”
As for Mourinho, Deeney revealed the Spurs boss at the time preferred the idea of signing Carlos Vinicius, whom the Lilywhites did indeed end up bringing in.
He added: “They wanted Carlos Vinicius. He was their man target. And it got to the point where, if that didn’t happen, they’d bring me in. I had a chat with Jose and it was like, ‘What do you want to do? How do you want to do it?’ And Jose wanted to check that I could deal with going from being a main man [at Watford] to being one of the squad.
“I was thinking about Fernando Llorente who went there previously, who kept scoring when he played. I said all I’m going to do is push Harry Kane to be the best version he can, and be his biggest cheerleader. Playing for Spurs was massively beyond my dreams.
“Jose was straight with me, about Vinicius being a better fit and that they wanted to get that deal done. Unfortunately for me, they did sign him.”
It’s hard to say whether Deeney would have been a success at Spurs. You cannot deny that, when he was at Watford, he did a good job for them at the highest level, he scored goals fairly regularly, and he made himself difficult to deal with on the pitch.
I would just have concerns over his attitude personally. I know his comments there sound like he would have relished the opportunity and that he knew his place, but some of his other comments in interviews over the last year suggest he was a bit egotistical and temperamental.
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