Darren Bent says he was happy to join Tottenham earlier in his career.

Bent joined Tottenham from Charlton back in 2007 for a then club-record fee of £16.5million, despite growing up an Arsenal fan.

He told Sky Sports: “I remember I was torn at the time because I was going to West Ham funnily enough.

“I'd been to meet [then West Ham manager] Alan Curbishley, come back from holiday, obviously I knew Alan Curbishley really well, he had taken me from Ipswich to Charlton.

“But obviously I ended up going to Spurs because obviously I felt Spurs were going in the right direction, they finished fifth.

“I was competing with some top strikers there in [Dimitar] Berbatov, [Jermain] Defoe and [Robbie] Keane."

He added: “Yeah I was an Arsenal fan but it's about career and playing for a massive football club.

“At the end the decision was pretty easy to be fair.

“To be fair for my development as well I wanted to go there and compete with these kind of guys.

“As I said Keane, Berbatov and Defoe - it doesn't get much better than that."