New Manchester City star Jack Grealish has opened up about just how close he came to joining Tottenham earlier on in his career.
Jack Grealish said: “I’ll always remember Dean Smith when he first come into Villa, he come in about three months into the season and I’d just nearly signed for Spurs that summer, it didn’t happen and then I stayed at Villa. He come in and he pulled me on his first day, and he says ‘so you were gonna [sic] sign for Spurs?’, I was like ‘yeah, nearly’. He was like ‘£25m?’ – I think we were like nine games in – ‘nine games in now, look’. On the board it said no goals, one assist. He was like ‘I need you to get your numbers up’, and that was one thing I tried to do, to get my numbers up there, and as soon as I’ve gone to City, that’s what the manager has said to me.”