Uruguayan claims he was naive to swap Chelsea for Tottenham

Gus Poyet has acknowledged that he was foolish to choose Tottenham Hotspur over Chelsea in 2001, saying that he was unaware of the intense rivalry between the two teams.

Poyet joined Tottenham in 2001 after spending four years at Chelsea.

He told Bet365s Courtesy of Full Circle: “I will be honest, I was very naïve, very naive. I swear by it, it isn’t a lie, I had no idea how close they were and all the reactions I would get from Chelsea supporters.

“My explanation is a simple one, because when I played for Chelsea, the two teams that I wanted to beat were Arsenal and Man United. They were the ones winning the league, I wasn’t even thinking about Spurs with respect to them. There was even more of a fight against Leeds because of previous history, more than when Chelsea played Spurs.

“When I was at Chelsea, it was during a time when we were beating Spurs often enough that no one made a big deal about it and it just seemed like a normal game.

“I had a couple of offers from some teams out of the country and another option being at Spurs, and I wanted to stay in London. So then I moved, and Glen Hoddle was a big part of that, but after the news had broken it was crazy.

“I didn’t know what I had done, it was madness. It was only then that I realised, but the truth was that I was very naïve.”