Southampton legend Matt Le Tissier has lifted the lid on the reasons why he turned down boyhood club Tottenham Hotspur during his playing career.
When it comes to one-club players, Southampton legend Matt Le Tissier is one of the first names that comes to mind alongside the likes of Sir Trevor Brooking, Steven Gerrard and Tottenham’s Ledley King.
Le Tissier played nearly 450 games for the Saints scoring over 160 goals, many of them spectacularly memorable.
The former England man has since carved out a career as a pundit on Sky Sports and is very much associated with all things Southampton.
But Le Tissier has revealed on Gary Neville’s Soccerbox that the closest he ever came to leaving was when his boyhood club Spurs came in for him.
“I came close (to leaving) when Spurs tried to buy me in 1990,” Le Tissier said on Soccerbox.
“That was the closest I came, so that was the most I was tempted to leave Southampton.
“That (Spurs) was the team I supported as a boy, Terry Venables was Spurs manager then, I changed my mind (having) kind of got a long way down the road to joining them, I changed my mind quite late on in the proceedings.
“A lot of it was kind of due to family circumstances really, I was quite young, I’d only really had one full season in the first division as it was back then and I didn’t feel it was the right thing to do.
“So I didn’t and then at Southampton I loved it down there I loved the area fans were brill to me that were always a big part in my decision not to move anywhere, I felt like I owed Southampton something because I was just a little kid from Guernsey and they took a chance on me and gave me my chance to be a professional footballer which was my dream.
“So I turned down Spurs and then Terry became the next England manager and then in 1995 Chelsea wanted to buy me when Glenn (Hoddle) was manager of Chelsea and I turned them down as well and he then became the next England manager, probably not the two best career decisions I could have made!”