Tottenham Hotspur sold Tashan Oakley-Boothe to Stoke City on deadline day.
Stoke City boss Michael O’Neill has told the Stoke Sentinel that Tottenham Hotspur actually offered Tashan Oakley-Boothe a new long-term deal – but he rejected them.
Tottenham were quiet on deadline day, failing to bring in the centre forward that Jose Mourinho wanted in Harry Kane’s absence.
There was an interesting outgoing though, as Spurs confirmed that midfielder Oakley-Boothe had been sold Championship side Stoke City.
A product of the Spurs youth setup, Oakley-Boothe only ever made one first-team appearance for Spurs, and that came back in September 2017.
That looked to be the start of Oakley-Boothe’s rise. Just a month earlier, the Daily Mail had reported that Mauricio Pochettino scrapped a move for Pape Cheikh Diop because he had big plans for Oakley-Boothe.
More than two years on, Pochettino left Spurs without using Oakley-Boothe again, and the 19-year-old seemingly felt it was time to move on in January.
Still, Stoke boss O’Neill claims that Spurs did actually offer Oakley-Boothe a new long-term contract, but he snubbed them in order to leave and play first-team football with the Potters.
O’Neill noted that Oakley-Boothe will have an adjustment period at Stoke, but the hope will be that Stoke can develop Oakley-Boothe – and make Spurs regret leaving him out of the first-team picture for so long.
“He’s fitted in very well and demonstrated already the quality he has,” said O’Neill. “When you take players from big Premier League clubs there’s a period of adjustment in adapting to the training. The style of football is different from under-23 football at Premier League level.”
“Tashan had the option to stay at Tottenham long-term, there was a long-term contract on the table, but he saw this as the next step in his career. We were very pleased to get him – there was a lot of interest in him,” he added.
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