Tashan Oakley-Boothe had a contract offer on the table to stay at Tottenham last month before leaving the club for Stoke City.
That’s according to Stoke manager Michael O’Neill, who took Oakley-Boothe to the Bet365 Stadium on deadline day on a permanent deal. When the transfer went through, we relayed a report from the Stoke Sentinel that claimed Jose Mourinho made a late decision to let the 19-year-old leave.
But O’Neill’s comments suggest otherwise. The Stoke boss appears to believe Oakley-Boothe was offered the chance to sign a new long-term contract with Tottenham, which means it’s unlikely Mourinho had a say on the final decision to let the teenager go.
“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,” O’Neill said (via the Stoke Sentinel).
“We were very pleased to get him – there was a lot of interest in him.”
Oakley-Boothe would have struggled for minutes had he stayed at Spurs, so perhaps the Londoners offered him a new deal to simply ensure they would receive a bigger transfer fee for him in the future.
In the end, it looks like Oakley-Boothe was desperate for immediate first-team football elsewhere, which might be why he chose to turn down Tottenham’s offer.
