Arriving from Anderlecht in 2014 for a fee of around £7m, Cheikhou Kouyaté has been a success at both West Ham and Crystal Palace.
The midfielder spent four years with the Hammers before moving to Selhurst Park in 2018, where £10m were deemed convincing enough to let him go.
However, the Senegal international also had the chance to move to Tottenham a bit before that, which he revealed in an interview with DH in Belgium.
Speaking to the website about the return of the Premier League and the difficulties behind playing so many games so regularly, the defensive midfielder was then asked if he had any regrets in his career so far.
He replied: “Tottenham wanted to sign me. I was being pushed to go there, but I hesitated. Slaven Bilić was my manager and wanted to keep me at West Ham, who were offering me a great contract.
“We’d come out of a good season after often being in the relegation zone. I preferred to stay. I changed clubs a bit later. Maybe too late. I could tell that to young player: a big club doesn’t always come twice”.
The interest would have come from Mauricio Pochettino, who had taken over at Tottenham in 2014, with Kouyaté referring to either the summers of 2015 or 2016.
Since joining Crystal Palace, the former Anderlecht man has made 71 appearances, scored one goal and assisted his teammates four times as he nears his 200th Premier League appearance, currently sat on 193.
