Darren Bent Admits it Was 'Pretty Easy' to Reject West Ham and Sign for Tottenham

Despite growing up as an Arsenal fan, Darren Bent has stated that it wasn't a hard decision to turn down West Ham in favour of north London rivals Tottenham.

Bent signed for Spurs in 2007 from Charlton for a reported £16.5m and went on to score 25 goals in 79 games before being sold to Sunderland.

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Bent had a big decision to make as he was set to leave Charlton, but boyhood loyalties didn't change his thinking.

Speaking on Sky Sports' Goals on Sunday, as quoted by The Express, he said: “I do remember that day [making the decision] to be fair. I remember I was torn at the time because I was going to West Ham funnily enough.

“I’d been to meet [then West Ham manager] Alan Curbishley, come back from holiday, obviously I knew Alan Curbishley really well, he had taken me from Ipswich to Charlton.

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“But obviously I ended up going to Spurs because obviously I felt Spurs were going in the right direction, they finished fifth.

“I was competing with some top strikers there in [Dimitar] Berbatov, [Jermain] Defoe and [Robbie] Keane."

When asked if there was any reservations about joining his boyhood rivals he added: "No not really, Spurs are a massive club.” 

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Bent made the big money move to north London with Tottenham, but struggled to play consistently for Spurs. It may be thought that him being a fan of Arsenal may have played a part in his motivation, but Bent rubbished the idea.

“Yeah I was an Arsenal fan but it’s about career and playing for a massive football club. At the end the decision was pretty easy to be fair," he added.

“To be fair for my development as well I wanted to go there and compete with these kind of guys. As I said Keane, Berbatov and Defoe - it doesn’t get much better than that.”