Or not as the day unfolds? Might sound like a silly question, but we had the same saga (for different reasons) with Fabregas - he's staying, he's going, he's committed, he's unfocused...... In the end it was a massive drain on team morale and the player, who is clearly world class, (as is Modric) never really performed to his best because of the distraction. Would you rather risk keeping an unhappy Modric? Or sell him to Chelsea for £35m and do some good business in January?
He's got a good 4/5 years remaining on his contract from memory. Worst case, if he becomes unfocussed he can be left on the reserves bench until the next transfer window. Its in his best interests to play to the best of his ability if he wants to move on, though, as he will need to stay in the spotlight if he wants to stay noticed by the likes of Chelsea in the future. Don't know if thats how it all works, but thats my theory anyway.
If he doesn't settle quickly, then it's best to let him go. TBH, I think that had the Chavs behaved honestly throughout this whole saga, then there's a chance Levy would have dealt, already. But, once they tried to nick Modric on the cheap with their crude tapping up campaign, I personally felt that Levy was so pissed off that no way would he sell to The Chavs, unless they paid very silly money.
I don't think it's ever good to keep an unhappy player, we experienced a similar problem ourselves with Gallas. The fact is Modric has no-one to blame but himself for this mess, you have to respect your contract and stick by your club, just because big clubs may came along it doesn't mean you can just jump ship at an instant, the fact is Spurs are trying to build a squad that can challenge the big 5 and he is a big part of that. I totally respect Levy's stance either way, it's about time clubs started to seize control, but I feel this could backfire in the long run
I'm not as much of a tool as you think I am. Despite what Ensil and others may believe I take absolutely no pleasure in seeing Modric act like this, as much as he would be a great asset to us he is a Spurs player and I think it is right he should honour his contract, we're all football fans at the end of the day so I can relate to how you feel about this. I'll be honest if one of our star players was linked to Spurs I would not want him to move.
A lot of paper talk fueled by Roman the terrible pravda team. It highly unlikely he offered anything above 30 million . A underhand attempt ( partly successful ) to destabilise the club. An evil and ugly Klepocracy regime will not always prevail. Refreshing to see tyrany in this case can be defeated.
We're not all skinhead cavemen down in SW London! It's always difficult to have a player that is integral to the team that wants to leave. Fabregas and Ronaldo both wanted to leave their respective clubs and everyone knew that and Arsenal and United both did all they can to keep them but if their mind is made up you are always going to have to let them go in the end. Modric signed a 6 year contract and that's been his undoing, as Spurs are well within their rights to make him stay for the duration of his contract and that is Levy's decision. I know that the £22 million bid is what wound everyone up at Spurs, that and making the bid public. Levy made his mind up not to sell and you have to respect his decision as he has stuck by it and hasn't been talking to the press every five minutes. I would expect that if there had been any real tapping up, by that I mean actual direct contact with the player by Chelsea, that Levy would have logged a formal complaint and we would be under investigation as we speak. Redknapp hasn't exactly covered himself in glory during this saga. He started by saying that Modric wasn't for sale, then he's saying it might be best to sell him and use the money for new signings and it was unfair to stop the move, then it's back to he's not for sale again. He's slated Chelsea for making the bid public and then gone on Sky Sports to make public the Spurs bid for Parker and slated the media for their constant interest in the story whilst stopping for a chat with the media on his way out of training to talk about it. It looks like Levy is the only one to come out of this with his head held high and I think Modric will get his head down and play now, but will move on in January or next summer.
Of course there was tapping up of the highest order. Maybe direct or not, Roman would have covered his tracks well . He is a untouchable and has quite a record of such matters.
Well unfortunately if there was tapping up there isn't any evidence of it as Levy would have rightly complained.
The tapping up was pretty obviously done via Modrics' agent, using The Fail as a mouthpiece. Whilst, obviously, we don't know all the minutae of what went on; something happened that clearly infuriated Levy to such an extent that he just refused to deal. And, for Levy to refuse to even talk about a deal, is rare indeed. We've done this one a hundred times before, but if it all comes down to money - which was clearly the main motivating factor, here. Then we just can't, or won't compete.
It's not quite tapping up if the agent is angling for a move for his player and he uses the media to push their wishes. It is still underhand tactics that are used widely by agents all over the world. If he had been a good enough agent in the first place he would have had a clause written into the six year contract that his client signed stating that he could leave for a top four club for an agreed figure and we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now.
As I said he covered his tracks, using various mouth pieces to do his dirty work. Tatics which worked well for the old KGB.
I agree that had a reserve transfer figure been put into Modrics' contract, then things might have gone differently. Modric will have to blame his agent for that omission. I'm afraid that you're just splitting hairs re the tapping up. As I said earlier, it was pretty crude, and obvious.
What else did he do? I guess he is also responsible for ice caps melting and the the near extinction of Mountain Gorilla's as well
The thing is that Roman didn't need to directly contact the player in order to try and push the deal through. Modric and his agent were well aware that an initial bid had been made as Chelsea made that bid and the subsequent bids public and by that time the players head has been turned and he's angling for a move. It's a bit like the Scott Parker deal. Nothing has been agreed with West Ham and Parker knows of the interest in him from Spurs and puts in a transfer request. Was he tapped up? Or did he just realise via the media that he had to push the deal through.
Parker has clearly put in a transfer request to facilitate the deal. If WHU don't have to pay him a percentage of the fee, then that makes it easier to agree a deal.
