Saints Legend Matt Le Tissier Reveals Why He Turned Down Chance to Join 'Boyhood Club' Tottenham

Matt Le Tissier has opened up about why he opted to stay with Southampton his entire career, rejecting an opportunity to join his boyhood club Tottenham

Matt Le Tissier has opened up about why he opted to stay with Southampton his entire career, rejecting an opportunity to join his boyhood club Tottenham Hotspur. 

Le Tissier played for the Saints between 1986 and 2002. During that period he made 540 appearances, scoring 209 times for the club. A true club legend, he was the PFA Young Player of the Year in 1990, as well as being voted the Southampton Fans' Player of the Season three times.

The former England international is one of the Premier League's most famous 'one club' men but things might have been very different if he had completed a switch to his boyhood club Tottenham.

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Speaking to fellow ex-Premier League star Gary Neville on the podcast Soccerbox (as quoted by HITC) the 49-year-old said: "I came close (to leaving) when Spurs tried to buy me in 1990. That was the closest I came, so that was the most I was tempted to leave Southampton.

"That was the team I supported as a boy, Terry Venables was Spurs manager then, I changed my mind [having] kind of got a long way down the road to joining them, I changed my mind quite late on in the proceedings. 

"A lot of it was kind of due to family circumstances really, I was quite young, I'd only really had one full season in the first division as it was back then and I didn't feel it was the right thing to do.

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"So I didn't and then at Southampton I loved it down there I loved the area fans were brill to me that were always a big part in my decision not to move anywhere, I felt like I owed Southampton something because I was just a little kid from Guernsey and they took a chance on me and gave me my chance to be a professional footballer which was my dream."

In addition to interest from Spurs, Le Tissier went on to reveal how another London club also took a shine to him later in his career, admitting his decision to stay on the south coast was possibly 'not the two best career decisions' he ever made.

"So I turned down Spurs and then Terry became the next England manager and then in 1995 Chelsea wanted to buy me when Glenn [Hoddle] was manager of Chelsea and I turned them down as well and he then became the next England manager, probably not the two best career decisions I could have made!"