Former Tottenham Hotspur striker Darren Bent admitted he wanted to get out of London after being with the club for two years.
Bent would then join Sunderland for £10 million back in 2009, before the switch to Wearside, the ex-forward scored 25 goals in 75 games for Spurs in all competitions.
He would then bang in the goals for the Black Cats, across all competitions he found the back of the net 36 times from 63 games.
Speaking to TalkSport, the now 39-year-old detailed why he was so keen to move out of the English capital.
He stated, “A lot of people asked me did I get homesick when I left Spurs to go to Sunderland, absolutely not! I was 25/26, I think. I wanted to get as far away from London as possible. To focus on football again, I had a tough two years at Spurs, wanted to get away from it. So I chose to go to Sunderland and it worked out fantastically well for me.”
Sunderland was the last time Bent really made a big impact in England’s top flight from a goalscoring perspective, despite subsequent moves to Aston Villa and a loan move to Fulham he never scored more than ten in a league campaign.
Often we hear talk of players being attracted to the idea of living in London, so it’s interesting to hear a different perspective.
Bent clearly had his focus on playing football at the time and it was arguably a risky move to move to Sunderland, but it certainly paid off for him.