Spurs legend admits he was underwhelmed when club approached him – Wanted bigger move

Former Tottenham striker, Dimitar Berbatov, has admitted that he was left underwhelmed to hear of Tottenham’s interest when the club first approached him.

Berbatov arrived at White Hart Lane in the summer of 2006 after finishing the previous season as the Bundesliga’s top scorer with Bayer Leverkusen.

The striker oozed class as soon as he stepped foot on the pitch for the Lilywhites in the Premier League and went on to forge a deadly partnership with Robbie Keane, before moving to Manchester United in the summer of 2008.

However, he has now admitted that he wasn’t enthusiastic about coming to North London initially as he was convinced that he would get approaches from bigger clubs.

The Bulgarian revealed that it was the club’s persistence that eventually convinced him to take a chance while Martin Jol also played a key part in getting him to Tottenham.

Speaking to talkSPORT, the former Spurs star said: “I was like, ‘wait a minute, Spurs want me? What? Not Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United?’

“I was thinking all these stupid questions because I was thinking I was doing so well that a big team must come after me.

“When you’re young, you think you know everything. You think you have all the answers to all the questions, but you have nothing.

“Again, my intuition will start working the same, ‘Berbs now is the right time, difficult but we need to challenge ourselves’.

“In the end, their persistence was a big factor for me, and of course, meeting [manager] Martin Jol was the moment I knew I had to go there.

“He’s sitting in the chair like the Godfather!

“He was like ‘Berba, welcome my boy!’ I was telling myself, ‘this is the right place’ purely because sometimes you just feel the connection with someone, I don’t know how to explain it.”

Spurs Web Opinion

It was clear with Berbatov that he was always going to use Spurs as a stepping stone in his career. He cannot be blamed as we weren’t good enough to compete with the ‘big four’ back then. While some Tottenham fans will not like the arrogance in the striker’s statement, it was that arrogance and his belief in his own ability that made Berbatov the striker he was.

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