£6m player says he regretted signing for Tottenham on the first day after signing.
Tottenham Hotspur have some of the best infrastructure in world football.
Say what you will about Daniel Levy, and Tottenham fans have protested against Levy recently, but he’s built some best-in-class facilities at Tottenham.
Spurs’ new stadium is a marvel of modern architecture, while The Hotspur Way Training Ground is amazing too.
However, it wasn’t always this way, and speaking on the High Performance Podcast, Les Ferdinand has been discussing his move to Tottenham and some of the standards that were at the club around that time.
Les Ferdinand regretted his Tottenham move on day one
Ferdinand spoke about his move to Tottenham and how he felt on his first day at Spurs.
The striker joined Spurs for £6m from Newcastle back in 1997, and, he says that on day one he’d thought he’d made a mistake joining Tottenham due to how unprofessional the club seemed.
“What were you thinking day one there?” Ferdinand was asked.
“When I went to Spurs? I’ve probably made a mistake. Have I made a mistake? Because it was just, just wasn’t professional enough,” Les Ferdinand said
“Everything about it wasn’t professional enough and I picked up quite a few injuries while I was at Spurs, but the training ground, everything that they had done, it just wasn’t at the level that I would have expected for Tottenham Hotspur.
“And I often say we was sponsored by Pony at the time and that was probably apt. It probably was because it was like, I just felt that so much more could have been done with what Tottenham were doing at the time.
“And in my first five years, I had four different managers and a change of board. So that kind of tells you how unsettled the football club was.”
Les Ferdinand stats for Tottenham
Ferdinand didn’t quite settle at Spurs it would seem, and that was reflected in his goal record for the north London club.
The striker wasn’t bad for Tottenham, make no mistake about it, but he wasn’t the goal machine he previously was for QPR and Newcastle, as the stats show.
Les Ferdinand stats per club Games Goals Assists Goals per game
Tottenham 147 39 6 0.27
Newcastle 84 50 15 0.6
QPR 171 83 23 0.49
Ferdinand’s goal output at Spurs wasn’t as good as it was for Newcastle and QPR, and that may be down to the fact he didn’t feel comfortable at the club in terms of the standards that were set.
Ferdinand didn’t like the club’s training ground, and he seemingly didn’t like how the club was run and how many managers were sacked.
Daniel Levy gets a lot of stick at Tottenham, sometimes rightfully so, but the reality is that Levy has taken Spurs to a new level in terms of facilities and infrastructure, and he deserves a lot of credit for that.
