Harry Redknapp claimed that Eden Hazard would have been a Spurs player, not a Chelsea player, had the Blues not won the Champions League in 2012.
Legendary wheeler-dealer Redknapp was the apt guest on Sky Sports News during the final hours of their transfer deadline day coverage, initially joining son Jamie on air with Jim White.
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The trio discussed all sorts of transfers and, evaluating Spurs deals, the club's former manager suggested Jose Mourinho's side could win the league, saying, "You need a bunch of great forward players to win the league and Spurs have [Gareth] Bale, [Harry] Kane and Son [Heung-min], so I definitely think they can do it this year."
And, speaking of having a great group of forwards together, the 73-year-old then explained that he tried to pair up Bale with Hazard in 2012, when the Belgian was leaving France, and nearly made it happen.
"We had seen him [Hazard] at Lille and he was our top target in the summer," Redknapp told White on Sky Sports.
"He wanted to play Champions League football and we had finished fourth, while Chelsea finished in sixth. But then, Chelsea won the Champions League and took our spot in the competition next season."
Spurs had finished fourth that season, just one point below Arsenal in third, but couldn't celebrate taking the final Champions League spot.
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Roberto di Matteo's Chelsea finished sixth in the league, behind Newcastle United, but played Bayern Munich in the final of the Champions League.
Their win put them in the competition the following season and knocked Spurs down to the Europa League, with UEFA only allowing a maximum of four spots per country at that time.
Hazard later tweeted to confirm where he was moving to, after interest from the likes of Spurs and Manchester United, and other big teams in Europe, saying, "I'm signing for the champion's league winner."
The failure to get Champions League football that season even cost Redknapp his job. Spurs won only four of their final 13 games, with three of those coming in the final four, and that put them in danger of falling foul of a Chelsea win.
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Spurs had been in third spot for most of the season before that end of season form and it should have been their local rivals who suffered from the Blues penalty shoot-out victory in Munich.
What might have been for Harry and Spurs.
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