01.07.2011
Lee Bradley looks at the rumours surrounding our Croatian international midfielder and what it might mean to Tottenham if he was sold.
I don’t feel as though I am over reacting when I say the decision to keep or sell Luka Modric will be one of the most pivotal in the history of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. The diminutive Croat with big skills has become a major cog in our Champions League seeking machine and is that rare case of a relatively unknown foreign player reaching our shores for big money and then going on to perform above and beyond expectations.
With the Dimitar Berbatov fiasco still fresh in all our minds this is a nerve jangling time for us Spurs supporters and personally I don’t know if I can take another hit like that ! I undoubtedly will though – part and parcel of being a fan. The main difference between Berbatov and Modric though is that Berbatov was a luxury that brought joy and goals to us in his short time at the Lane, but when he was sold it was always considered to be a good deal due to his inconsistency and the fact that we could buy someone just as good at scoring.
This I’m afraid is not the case with Luka Modric, this guy is a one off player that can hold the ball with four players around him and still distribute the ball with precision – he is the heartbeat Tottenham have been missing for so many years, a heartbeat that cannot be replaced with a faulty pacemaker or dodgy donor that will pack up within a couple of weeks. This makes Modric irreplaceable and surely therefore unsaleable; even if we got £50 million for him we could not attract the same calibre of player without smashing our wage structure (compensation for no ECL).
The way I see it, we need to keep all our star performers at whatever cost necessary, get rid of the dead wood and bring in someone who can put the chances away week in week out, an old head like Van Nistelrooy. The team obviously craves Champions League football badly and this season, Europa aside, should be based solely on getting back into the upper echelon of Europe. Getting into the top four is all about pouncing on the weakest team and taking advantage of their misfortune (i.e. Liverpool’s demise for the last two seasons has profited us and Citeh greatly). Chelsea’s appointment of a manager younger than some of the team will either be a masterstroke or a disaster and we need to capitalize on that as unfortunately it looks like Ar5en Whinger has woken up and realized he needs to buy players in defence, midfield and attack …
Anyway, back to the Modric situation, this is a chance for Levy to really shine if you ask me. He can turn round to Chelsea or Manure and say thanks, but no thanks we are actually going to enjoy the fruits of our labour this time. I really do believe though that it’s time to pack up and go home if Modric’s agent gets his way. I have to believe that it’s Modric’s agent doing all this as Luka just looks like he wants to play football loves Spurs, I won’t hear anything else ! Although if the worst did happen and Modric headed out of the gates and down the High Road there is one player that has made it be known that he sees the Premiership as a “dream move” and I for one would wet my pants if he joined Spurs and that is a certain Diego of Wolfsburg. I have followed his career since he signed for Bremen and I think he is a fantastic player with a great passing range, he can score and create goals, has pedigree in Europe and Internationally and is a slightly more all round midfielder than Van Der Vaart. So a central midfield of Diego/van der Vaart and Sandro/Huddlestone wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
But would the board have time to buy Diego after selling Modric half an hour before the transfer window closes ?
I’ll stick instead of twisting thanks…
Lee Bradley