‘Out of this world’… Aaron Lennon says player Tottenham sold for £30m used to embarrass teammates in training

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Aaron Lennon has claimed that former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Luka Modric used to run rings around his teammates in training.

The former Tottenham winger has been reflecting on his time in North London and named Luka Modric among the best he’s played alongside.

Modric joined Tottenham from Dynamo Zagreb back in 2008 and started as a left-sided midfield player. 

After a slow start to life in England, the Croatian star began to showcase his talent under Harry Redknapp and became Spurs’ playmaker in the middle of the park.

After four brilliant years at White Hart Lane where he was part of the Spurs side who qualified for the Champions League for the first time, Modric moved on to Real Madrid for £30 million and the rest is history. 

The veteran midfielder has gone on to win five Champions League titles during his time in the Spanish capital, as well as the Ballon D’or. 

And while Aaron Lennon admits he didn’t see Modric turning out to be the player he is today, his ability was never in doubt.

Lennon says Modric was ‘out of this world’

Speaking on Rio Ferdinand’s FIVE, he said: ”Obviously Modric comes in, out of this world.” 

The former Spurs winger was then asked if he knew Modric would develop into one of the best midfielders of his generation.

“I didn’t see that coming, at first anyway,” Lennon said. “It’s funny because when he first come in, he was really small, really nimble and for the first few months, if you look at Modric at Tottenham, he struggled to adapt to the tempo of the league.

“He did it when he went to Madrid at first, do you know what I mean? But we used to see glimpses in training like ‘have we just seen that?’

“He used to give you the wow moments where you’re like ‘oh my god’. He was just leaving people through the middle of the pack.

“People were pressing him and once he got to grips with it, it was stupidness. He’s only one of two players I used to play with who could run a whole game.

“Modric would slow it down when you needed it, speed it up when you needed it, or keep the ball. Literally, he dictated how this game was going to go, whether that was training, but then doing it in the matches. Like I said, it was next level.”

Modric has gone down as one of the best midfielders of the past decade and he’s up there with Tottenham’s best of the Premier League era. 

Of course, his move away from North London was a bitter pill to swallow for Tottenham fans at the time after he was also linked with a switch to Chelsea.

The 38-year-old has shown no signs of slowing down, despite the fact he isn’t getting any younger.

He continues to feature regularly for Real Madrid and hasn’t indicated any willingness to hang up his boots anytime soon.