Some Tottenham Hotspur fans might be surprised by news that the club ever made an attempt to sign Sergio Aguero from Atletico Madrid before he came to the Premier League.
Aguero did make his move to England eventually, but he ended up scoring goals against Tottenham for Manchester City rather than representing the north Londoners.
Of course, it seems as if Aguero is very unlikely to regret his move to Man City today, a club where he won five Premier League titles.
In total, Aguero played for City a remarkable 390 times netting 260 goals and providing 64 assists – a proper Premier League legend.
And in terms of the Argentinian’s record against Spurs, Aguero scored 12 goals in 18 games against Tottenham, winning 11 of those ties.
Daniel Levy was personally pushing to sign Sergio Aguero for Tottenham
That being said, Tottenham actually met Aguero’s release clause whilst he was still playing in Spain back in January of 2011.
The striker ended up joining City six-months later, but towards the end of the January window, a move for Aguero to N17 was believed to be possible.
Back at the time, Mail Sport reported that Spurs had a £38.5m bid rejected for Aguero, even though it met the release clause figure in the striker’s contract.
Daniel Levy was determined to land a marquee signing before the January deadline, and although Tottenham matched Aguero’s buy-out clause, Atletico still wanted add-ons to take the deal higher.
Therefore, Spurs decided to move on, meaning that Aguero was then free to join their Premier League rivals in the summer.
Harry Redknapp actually wanted to sign Diego Forland instead
Interestingly, Tottenham’s pursuit of Aguero was said to be inspired by Levy’s own judgement – Harry Redknapp, who was manager at the time, wanted to sign a different Atletico forward.
Redknapp wanted former Manchester United forward Diego Forlan, who was available for as little as £10m.
However, Levy considered 31-year-old Forlan as too expensive given his age, and the Spurs chairman thought that a deal for Aguero as much better value.
Of course, Levy was right on reflection Aguero went on to become one of the best strikers that the Premier League has ever seen.
But it is also interesting to consider what an experienced forward like Forlan could have achieved in north London, were Redknapp to have got his wish.
Although, Forlan did leave Atletico six-months after Spurs’ interest to join Inter Milan in Italy, and the striker did only manage to score twice in 20 matches before he was eventually released.
