Petrov wanted Tottenham move

From Sky Sports, quoting Petrov's agent Luchezar Taney:

Manchester City rejected the deal mainly due to manager Mark Hughes' unwillingness'.

Tanev told Bulgarian radio station Darik: "I can say that Martin wanted to join Tottenham. You see that he has some problems at City and that's why he decided to look elsewhere and Spurs made an offer for him. But it's not the end of the world. He has one year of his contract left and we'll see after that."

The Sky news bulletin that is on TV currently suggests that the deal for Bentley was scuppered due to Tottenham's desire to have Petrov included, a sign perhaps that Hughes sees Petrov very much in his future plans.

This is certainly good news given the widespread antipathy with regards to the potential Bentley-Petrov deal that was mooted first thing this morning, and that I feel Petrov can have a big part to play in the side.

He doesn't however have too long left on his deal so the next stage will now be to try and secure him longer term.

How easy that will be is another question.