David Bentley has reiterated his belief that his Tottenham career was ended because of a personal grudge with Harry Redknapp over their famous Champions League qualifying celebrations.
Bentley was the lead jester in the scenes which saw Redknapp hosed with a bucket of ice water while being interviewed for Sky Sports following our pivotal 1-0 win at Manchester City at the end of the 2009-10 season.
Speaking to The Athletic, the 35-year-old former winger, who retired from football over six years ago, thinks it is no coincidence that his time at White Hart Lane started to go downhill after this incident.
“Before that, we always got on. We were similar in some ways,” Bentley told The Athletic. “But I don’t think he was very happy when I put the bucket on his head. He’s said some things… I read the other day that he didn’t like it and maybe he’s just saying it to make his book more interesting. I did it because we’d qualified for the Champions League and it was brilliant. It was because of the feeling, the raw emotion of what we’d done. It was suggested by the other players and I went with it as always.”
“I played a lot that season (2009-10) but then, bucket over the head, and you watch — I barely played again. It wasn’t explained to me and that’s when you think it’s a business. I’d damaged his reputation. He wanted to be seen as a serious manager, but we’d just shown that we love you. I thought to myself, ‘You’ve totally gone the wrong way with this’.
“I read what he was saying in a newspaper article the other day (Redknapp gave his own take on the incident in the Daily Star in March, saying that Bentley’s actions ‘undermined’ him and the club but insisting it was not to blame for his Spurs demise), and I was just thinking, ‘This is totally not true’. But you’ve got to take it and move on. Because that was way off and it wasn’t the way it was portrayed. That was the opposite to what went on.”
I’m with ‘Arry on this one. Bentley was not as important a player in that Champions League qualification as he makes out in that interview, starting only 11 times in the league that year, contributing one goal and two assists.
What ended Bentley’s Spurs career was the arrival of a certain Rafael van der Vaart in the summer of 2010. With Gareth Bale coming through and Aaron Lennon also in the fold for wide positions, he just couldn’t cut it.
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