Preston North End winger Liam Millar has admitted being so close to signing for Tottenham Hotspur before picking a move to Liverpool.
PNE have a number of players who came through with Premier League academies.
Freddie Woodman at Crystal Palace and Newcastle United, Greg Cunningham at Manchester City, Will Keane and Robbie Brady at Manchester United, Ryan Ledson at Everton, Ben Woodburn at Liverpool – the list goes on.
It’s certainly difficult to rise through a Premier League academy and become a first-team star and Liam Millar is an example of that.
The Canadian winger came through at Liverpool but only made one first-team appearance for the Reds before quitting for Basel in the summer of 2021.
Now shining for North End, Millar has spoken to PNE Pod about his early days – and how close he came to joining one of Liverpool’s Premier League rivals instead.
Liam Millar almost joined Tottenham Hotspur
Miller had moved from Canada to join the Fulham ranks before joining Liverpool in 2016.
Aged just 16 at the time, Millar was attracting major interest and has now admitted that he was so close to signing for Tottenham Hotspur instead.
Millar noted that he was ‘dead set’ on signing for Tottenham despite not being too enamoured with the housing plans for him.
A random friendly against Liverpool saw Millar play well, putting himself on the Reds radar – and that is where everything changed.
Millar got a great feeling from Liverpool and decided to commit his future to the Reds, believing that you just can’t turn down Liverpool when they come knocking.
“I struggled for a little bit then 15-16 is when I started to do better,” said Millar. “In 2016 I did really well, I scored a lot of goals in that year and I was playing really well. At the time, I had Tottenham and a couple of other clubs interested in signing me. To be honest, I was dead set on going to Tottenham, I was sure I was going to go, I spoke to my parents.”
“The only thing I didn’t like is they wanted me to move in to digs, so my parents could live around the corner but they couldn’t live with me and because I was there with my dad for so long, I kind of wanted to stay with my dad. That’s how they did it there, which is whatever, it is what it is. I was dead set and then we played a friendly game against Liverpool for some reason and I scored and Caoimh (Caoimhin Kelleher) was in goal.”
“I played well in the game and I was 16 so I had an agent at the time and my agent was like ‘oh, Liverpool are interested in you’, and I was like ‘really? Okay, let’s go and have a look, we’ll have a look at the training ground’. I just got a completely different vibe from what I got everywhere else. I went to Liverpool and it felt like an extremely family-oriented club, I just had a good feeling about it so I said to my agent and my dad ‘I think I want to go to Liverpool’… you can’t really turn down Liverpool when they come in for you,” he added.
Millar spent time out on loan during his Liverpool days, spending two spells with Kilmarnock and one with Charlton Athletic.
A move to Switzerland with Basel saw Millar end his time at Liverpool, giving up on the Anfield dream at the age of just 21.
Now showing his quality in English football once again, Millar no doubt wants to play against the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham in the Premier League.
We are frankly desperate to see loanee Millar join PNE permanently from Basel and really push for the top flight at North End and a summer deal for the Canadian would be quite the coup after an impressive campaign.