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Time for a breather from the Andre Villas Boas talk, eh? Instead, let's go to the equally exciting Luka Modric transfer saga of general hilarity and excellent, where Tottenham Hotspur are still stating that Modric is going nowhere after Chelsea raised their bid for the Croatian midfielder to £25M. In fact, say the media, Spurs are considering reporting the Blues for making an illegal approach for Modric.
It has been going on for the last three or four weeks since Carlo Ancelotti lost his job. Somebody else thinks he is choosing the players, not the new manager.
Possibly [there has been an illegal approach]. You never know. With deals now they go to agents, then the player, before the club. There is not a player transferred that does not know a club wants him before contact [between the clubs] is made.
-Harry Redknapp. Source: Telegraph.
Maybe it's just me, but that quote would make a lot more sense if it had the question Redknapp was responding to in it. 'Has there been an illegal approach?' 'Maybe' is very different to, 'We are considering reporting Chelsea for an illegal approach'.
Anyway, the tapping up business seems to me to be fairly generic stuff, and not really worth of comment. What is strange is the reported incremental bid from Chelsea - £22M for Modric is derisory and £25M isn't very much better. Why would Chelsea offer so little for a player worth at least £30M? It's a bit of a mystery, but presumably they're simply hoping to unsettle Modric and see if they can get him to request a transfer, something he's previously said he's not particularly interested in doing.
I don't see this being resolved anytime soon, but one thing is quite clear - Tottenham cannot match their star's ambitions, and it will be very difficult to keep him around without a major change in the calibre of the team.