Former Leicester City striker, Islam Slimani, has revealed that he received a call from Jose Mourinho who wanted to bring him to Tottenham Hotspur last year.
Slimani was prolific during his time at Sporting Lisbon but his career has gone downhill since his move to Leicester City in 2016.
After failing to make the expected impact at the King Power Stadium, the striker had unsuccessful loan spells at Newcastle and Fenerbahce, before a relatively decent spell at Monaco last season.
It was only during the recent January transfer window that the Algerian international was able to seal a permanent move away from the Foxes as Lyon snapped him up.
The 32-year-old has got plenty of minutes under his belt since arriving at the Groupama Stadium.
Even though he has only found the back of the net on three occasions for the Ligue 1 club, he has proven to be a useful option for Rudi Garcia with his ability to hold up the ball and bring others into play.
Slimani admitted that he saw the call from Mourinho during January of 2020 as a reward for his improved run of form.
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The former Leicester striker told L’Equipe (as relayed by Goal.com): “At the start, I was the typical scorer.
“I changed my way of playing a bit in Turkey (2018-2019, in Fenerbahce), where I had to drop out to get balls.
“And then with Wissam (Ben Yedder) in Monaco (2019-2020), it worked well like that too, even if (Robert) Moreno (the coach, arrived in December 2019) chose to only play with a striker last year, so to put me on the bench.
“Mourinho then called me at this time for Tottenham. It is a form of reward. You tell yourself that some see your efforts.”
Spurs Web Opinion
With Kane out injured last season, we were desperate for a striker during last year’s January window and were linked with some surprising names including the likes of Slimani and Piatek.
Although some Spurs fans might have been angered by our inability to land a striker at the time, in hindsight, we probably did the right thing by waiting until the summer rather than signing someone who was not at the level that we needed, particularly considering that the season was temporarily suspended in March due to the pandemic.
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