Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, has preempted a bid of £35 million for the attacking midfielder, Luka Modric. The manager also added that the price of £35 million insults the talents of the Croatian.
Modric has been frustrated by the fact that there would be no Champions League football with Spurs next season. He has already insisted that he is looking for a move across London to Chelsea, who have been interested in the Croatian for a longtime now.
Chelsea have already had two bids rejected for Modric. The first one was for £22 million at the start of the transfer period and the second one was for £27 million a few weeks back. Modric had been waiting for the clubs to sort the transfer smoothly but Spurs’ hard stance forced him to hand in a transfer request to the club’s chairman, Daniel Levy.
Redknapp has repeatedly insisted that he wants to keep the player at Spurs. While Redknapp has a reputation of a wheeler dealer in the transfer market and looks for the highest value while selling players, there has to be some truth in this statement. Modric has been Spurs’ best player in the last couple of seasons, even though it was Gareth Bale who stole the limelight last year.
Modric has been more consistent than any other midfielder in the league and has a sound technique. He will be well suited to Chelsea’s style of football. Chelsea already started having problems with their midfield. Michael Essien will be out of the side indefinitely due to a knee injury and Frank Lampard is on the wrong side of thirty. Ramirez is just settling into the side and John Obi Mikel has still not convinced everyone.
Modric will easily assert himself into the side and Chelsea’s new manager, Andres Villas-Boas, has also approved the pursuit of the player. Chelsea however, are dealing with one of the toughest negotiators in the Premier League. Levy is known for milking bug clubs for many of his players, the recent examples being Liverpool for Robbie Keane and Manchester United for Dimitar Berbatov.
The Berbatov saga continued till the last day of the transfer market and United were eventually forced to pay £35 million. It will be interesting to see if Chelsea would go over the £35 million mark for Modric.
For Spurs, this is a very important season and they will need all their best players to have a crack at that all important fourth spot.