Former Tottenham Hotspur defender Benoit Assou-Ekotto has now revealed that he had the opportunity to join Arsenal before he moved to Spurs.
The Cameroon international has now revealed that he chose to turn down a move to Arsenal because of certain reasons.
Assou-Ekotto revealed that Arsenal had the habit of going to a hotel as a team the night before a game and he did not want to be a part of that. In addition to that, Arsenal were competing in Europe regularly at the time and therefore the players had to live in a hotel multiple times every week and that was unacceptable for the former Spurs defender.
Therefore, the former Premier League defender urged his agent to seal a move to Tottenham instead, who did not put up their players in a hotel a night before the game.
He said to Julian Palmieri on his YouTube show: “Do you know why I didn’t sign for Arsenal? I asked my agent: “Do they go to the hotel before matches? He said yes, they do. I said I’m not going there. I want to have a life, not live in a hotel.
“Then he told me that Tottenham didn’t do that, so I said cool, we’ll go to Tottenham! What’s more, Arsenal were playing in the European Cup, which meant you weren’t at home 4 days a week!”.
Benoit Assou-Ekotto was an important player for Tottenham
The defender went on to make 204 appearances for Tottenham across all competitions and he spent seven seasons with them.
Regardless of the bizarre reason for rejecting Arsenal, Tottenham fans we will certainly be delighted that he chose to join them.
He was an important player for them during his time at the club and he put in impressive performances on a consistent basis. Assou-Ekotto made the left back spot is own during his time at the club and he could have been a useful acquisition for Arsenal as well.
