Carlton Cole admits Roman Abramovich rejected Tottenham transfer before he joined West Ham

Carlton Cole remains one of the more popular strikers of the modern era at West Ham United, but his career could have looked very different had Roman Abramovich not scotched a move from Chelsea to Tottenham Hotspur.

Last summer, Mohammed Kudus became the first player to join Spurs from the Hammers since Scott Parker 14 years previously.

It has been even longer since anyone left another London giant for Tottenham. Gus Poyet, back in 2001, is still the most recent transfer between Chelsea and their rivals from the north. Two years before Roman Abramovich completed his takeover of the Stamford Bridge outfit, and forever changed the face of English football.

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Abramovich already had a very strained relationship with Tottenham by the time Carlton Cole underwent a medical at White Hart Lane in 2005. According to Sky Sports, Martin Jol’s Spurs were on the verge of signing the Chelsea academy graduate for £2 million on a four-year deal.

Fortunately for West Ham United, Abramovich called off that arrangement as soon as he became aware of it. Cole would move to another London outfit just one year later.

West Ham United icon Carlton Cole remembers his failed Tottenham transfer

While not a prolific goalscorer, Carlton Cole was ‘unplayable’ on his day in a claret and blue jersey. He would go on to score 68 goals across nearly 300 games and during almost a decade’s worth of service.

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One can only imagine how differently his career would have mapped out had Abramovich been a more forgiving character.

“Before I went on holiday, I did my medical at Spurs!” Cole says opposite Adebayo Akinfenwa on his Beast Mode On podcast. “I remember I’d done everything, was about to sign, under Martin Jol. So I’ve gone, done the medical and everything.

“That’s when I got the Abramovich phone call. He told me, ‘he doesn’t do business with Spurs’. That’s why I didn’t go to Spurs. I was going to go to Spurs!

“Remember, before he bought Chelsea, he was going to buy Spurs. The way it happened, he went in a helicopter to London because he wanted to buy a football club. Spurs were the one that stuck out to him. He did the deal with Spurs, someone up top changed the deal that he’d agreed on buying it for, and then he’s like: ‘I can’t do business like this’.

“So he says, we’ll go Chelsea and buy that!'”

Roman Abramovich refused to let Spurs buy the Stamford Bridge kid

Cole remembers being extremely frustrated by Abramovich’s insistence that he return to West London, not to mention the threat of a loan stint in faraway Russia.

“Tottenham came back to Chelsea and said, ‘We want some money off [the price] because we found something in his knee’. [Abramovich] said; ‘No, we aren’t doing a deal with Spurs so you better come back. I’ll send him on loan to CSKA Moscow’,” Cole recalls, speaking as his old employers prepare to face Liverpool on Saturday.

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Surely you wouldn't swap him for Gravenberch?

“I was p***** off! ‘You lot are doing me dirty here!’You’re not playing me and you’re not letting me go where I want to go. What are we doing here? You want to send me to Russia?’

“So I went away to clear my head, I went to Sierra Leone. Then I get the phone call, ‘we’ve got something else for you, West Ham’.

And that was it. I came back. As soon as I landed, I signed; a West Ham player.”

Flash forward twenty years, and the former England international is still earning a living with the Hammers. He is currently the club’s Loans and Pathways Manager, responsible for the development of an exciting crop of academy kids.

Cole believes Mohamadou Kante is the ‘shining beacon’ of this current generation, though Ezra Mayers, Preston Fearon, Daniel Cummings and Joel Ajala have all made big strides forward themselves in recent times.