Ex-Tottenham man reveals Levy labelled him an ‘absolute disgrace’ during heated transfer row

Former England international Steven Caulker has recalled the heated argument he had with chairman Daniel Levy while he was with Tottenham Hotspur.

The 31-year-old’s career has been seriously impacted by his problems with alcohol, gambling addiction and depression.

He was once considered to be one of the leading young defenders in England and he scored in his sole senior cap in a friendly against Sweden in 2012.

Caulker progressed through the ranks at Spurs and made 28 appearances for them across all competitions during the 2012/13 campaign.

Cardiff City spent a club-record fee of £8m to sign the centre-back from Spurs before the 2013/14 season. He later went on to have spells with QPR, Southampton, Liverpool and Wigan Athletic.

He has now lifted the lid on a conversation he had with Levy before he left the North London side in 2013. The Spurs chief predicted that the defender would “only go lower” after departing the Premier League outfit after he admitted that he “wanted to go and play” elsewhere.

“I’m sat there with Daniel Levy and and he says: ‘Your behaviour this week has been an absolute disgrace. The owner wants to tear your contract up, understandably so’,” Caulker recalled via the Eventful Lives podcast.

“I was steaming for the whole time, disgrace, black out, all of that.

“He said to me: ‘Look, we could offer you a new deal. You were two games away from getting another year extension.

“‘I’m going to give you that year extension, I’m going to increase your money, this would be a deal’.

“I was like: ‘No, I don’t want it. I want to go and play. This manager doesn’t respect me.’ And I was forcing for a move.

‘”He said to me, and I’ll never forget his words because there has never been a truer word said: “If you leave here, I promise you you’re only going to go lower.”‘

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Spurs are finally on the up with Ange Postecoglou in charge. Summer signing James Maddison has insisted that he is a “really likeable man”.

“He’s been good. He’s a really likeable man. You very rarely have a social sort of conversation with him. He won’t sit and have lunch with you or have any small talk,” Maddison told Ben Foster in an interview for Amazon Prime.

“But there’s a level of respect there, and he’ll always ask about your family. But he doesn’t want to be too tight with players, there’s a boundary and he wants to treat everyone the same – there’s no favourites”.

He added: “He genuinely makes you want to go and play well for him. He has that charisma, the way he uses stories and messages when he speaks to us.”