Former team-mate urges star to leave Tottenham and join his new club

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Ivan Perisic has been urged to leave Premier League giants Tottenham Hotspur and re-join Hajduk Split in his native Croatia ‘this year’. 

A return to the club where he started his career two decades ago will not only see Ivan Perisic come full circle, it will also see one of Croatia’s favourite footballing sons reunite with a player he knows well from his time at Belgian giants Club Brugge. 

Tottenham veteran Perisic shared a dressing room with Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe in Belgium.  

And, after joining from Gent earlier in the summer, the latter is making no secret of his attempts to lure former back to the Stadion Poljud. 

Tottenham’s Ivan Perisic keen on Croatia return

“He called me while we were on the bus on the way back from Zagreb to Split,” Odjidja-Ofoe tells SportKlub. 

“And I told him that everyone was waiting for him here. So everyone should keep working on it and I hope he will come here soon so we can enjoy and play together again.

“He didn’t promise me anything, but he said he would look into his situation. Of course, I heard that he promised the people of Split that one day he will play for Hajduk again. That is one of his dreams.

“I hope it will come true very soon.”

Perisic only joined Tottenham last summer, arriving on a free transfer from Inter Milan. And while the departure of his former Nerazzuri coach has raised doubts over the 34-year-old’s future in North London, there appears to still be a place in Ange Postecoglou’s plans for a man who remains one of the most experienced and versatile members of the squad. 

Hajduk Split’s sporting director, meanwhile, insists that he will do ‘everything’ to bring Perisic home, adding that the 2018 World Cup finalist ‘would like to play’ for his side. 

Hajduk have not won Croatia’s top flight since Perisic’s first spell at the club in the mid-2000s. And Odjidja-Ofoe is keen to use a potential place in Hajduk folklore as another carrot to lure Perisic back to where it all began.

“I told him; ‘if you wait too long, maybe the first title will already be here’!” the former Norwich ace jokes. “That’s why he has to come this year.”