As Watford prepare to host fifth-place Tottenham Hotspur on New Year's Day, their former defender Younes Kaboul has spoken out against the North London club. The 30-year-old Watford defender shed some light on his ending at White Hart Lane, and how he fell out with current Spurs manager MauricioPochettino.
As reported in The Daily Mailthe Frenchman said: "The end was not OK (at Tottenham)."
"Because the manager disrespected me, 100 percent. When Mauricio first came, we had a very nice, human, man-to-man kind of respect. And then something happened, and I don't know what it was.
"I got injured, and then he didn't talk to me anymore. Then he was not putting me in the squad for no reason. One game, two games, three games, and that was strange for me because I am supposed to be his captain.
"I'm not saying because I'm his captain I need to play, no, no, no. If I am not good enough to play, I am not playing. But you have to respect players, to talk to them and explain why they're not playing.
"After a few games, I went to see him, to ask what was happening. I needed to understand because clearly, he wasn't talking to me. But he said: 'There's nothing, I've got nothing to say to you.
"I asked him to put himself in my position. He was a captain at good clubs like Paris Saint-Germain where his manager was Luis Fernandez, a very good manager. I said: 'How would you feel if he dropped you with no reasons'. And he said: 'It was different.
"After that, I shook his hand, and we stopped talking to each other. That was the end.
"I'm still waiting to find out why. It's behind me now. I keep some very good memories, and I have a lot of respect for Tottenham but I played against them last year with Sunderland, and I'm going to play against them with Watford. I play to win. That's my mentality."
The former Spurs man enjoyed a fruitful spell at Tottenham in which he won the Carling Cup and was a part of Tottenham's fantastic run in the Champions League. However, after six years in North London, Kaboul was frozen out of first team football at White Hart Lane and has since gone on to play at Sunderland and currently Watford.
Although despite his falling out with Pochettino, the 30-year-old did have some nice things to say about his former club upon his reflection.
"When I first signed, I knew nothing at all about the Premier League.
"I was 21, and it took a while for me to understand the importance of what it meant to play for Spurs.
"We won the Carling Cup, and it was like we'd won the World Cup, the way they celebrated.I still have the medal at home, but I wanted to win more.
"It must have been the best team in Spurs history, or one of the best: Modric, Bale, Van der Vaart, Adebayor, Crouch, Defoe, Scott Parker. Top players."
Kaboul's Watford host Tottenham on New Years Day at Vicarage Road as The Hornets look to break Spurs' three-game winning streak.