Chelsea may yet make another bid for Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Modric after Blues chief executive Ron Gourlay revealed he plans to hold talks with manager Andre Villas-Boas after transfer targets this week.
“I don’t like talking about players from other clubs, but that’s something we’ll look at during the week and we’ll take it from there,” Gourlay said on Sky Sports News.
“We really need to sit down with Andre and talk this through. Even though we’ve been travelling away you can still be active in the marketplace nowadays.”
Spurs boss Redknapp refused to criticise the unsettled Modric after the Croatian missed the Brighton friendly due to illness, but with a bid for Valencia ace Juan Mata in the works, Redknapp is aware of the possibility that his Croatian midfielder may depart.
Modric wants to join Chelsea but Spurs are refusing to sell and have rejected two bids from their Premier League rivals.
“Obviously it’s been a difficult period for everybody with [Modric]. He’s trained well and worked hard. He’s a great lad and you couldn’t meet a better pro in my opinion.”
Asked whether £35m would be enough for Chelsea to capture Modric, Redknapp was defiant.
“If we were looking to sell him it wouldn’t meet my valuation,” said the Spurs boss.
“I think he is worth an awful lot more money than that.”
“Really we’re not looking to sell Luka. We need to keep our best players so he is a player that we want to keep if possible.
“It is in the hands of the chairman of the football club [Daniel Levy]. It’s not my decision at the end of the day. I obviously want to keep him as the coach but the chairman says he is not for sale so we’ll have to wait and see.
“We’re quite determined, if we can, to hang onto him but it is a difficult situation. It’s a difficult one for Luka and it’s a difficult one for Tottenham.”
Sources today indicate a £40m offer would have to be considered very seriously by the Spurs hierarchy, for despite the good form of Josh McEachran in pre-season, Villas Boas is looking at alternate options in the Chelsea midfield.
Oriol Romeu will join from Barcelona, while Frank Lampard has also been tested as a holding midfielder in the wake of Michael Essien’s injury.
Modric though, could make all the difference at Stamford Bridge.
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