Super Eagles defender William Troost-Ekong has revealed that Liverpool and Manchester City were interested in his signature before his transfer to Tottenham Hotspur.

Born to a Nigerian father and Dutch mom, the Gent star has suggested that the White Hart Lane outfit were more aggressive in their approach to sign him than their Premier League rivals.

“I had already gone to City but not to Liverpool yet. I had in fact been selected for Tottenham Hotspur, ” Troost-Ekong said in the latest edition of Elf Voetbal.

“The club did everything to attract me. They flew my mother to London for talks and even wanted to fly to Nigeria to look for my father.

“They came to my school to arrange that I would rather have one day a week to train with older boys, and every day I was picked up with a taxi.”

Troost-Ekong, 23, joined Gent in July 2015 after stops at FC Groningen and FC Dordrecht.

The former Netherlands U20 international will be returning to familiar surroundings in the next two weeks when the Super Eagles take on Senegal at the Hive Stadium before facing Burkina Faso.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel