For the past two months or so one transfer story has attracted more attention than most and has come to dominate football headlines across Europe – the potential sale of Spurs ace – Luka Modric. Despite the desperate plea of manager Harry Redknapp and the love of the Tottenham faithful which has seen Modric scoop the supporters player of the season, it now seems inevitable he will leave with two important questions yet to be answered: destination and price. But let us go beyond the speculation and fanfare for a minute and consider the potential implications for the future of Tottenham Football Club.
Undoubtedly set to polarize opinion, there is a good argument to be made the departure of Luka will prove disastrous for Spurs in the long-run, potentially ending Harry’s long-term project of establishing Spurs as a top four club.
After all Modric has played an instrumental role in the club’s recent success: gaining a top four finish, the first in the clubs illustrious history, with his best performances coming in several Champions League games this season beating the likes of Italian giants Inter Milan. Of course others will disagree, arguing as Tottenham legend Gary Mabbutt has done that there is no place for unhappy or disloyal players at the club.
While this is true, it is by no means a solution to a problem that has dictated Tottenham’s past – the inability to maintain the loyalty of its best players when it really matters – and will continue to do so until a precedent is firmly set. This goes beyond the buzzword of modern football in my opinion – ‘player-power’ – as you don’t see ‘player power’ and all that it entails destroying the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and especially Liverpool, who have failed to reach the Champions League yet again. Yet you don’t see any of Liverpool’s household names calling for a transfer?
There is much more at stake here than losing Luka himself – Spurs are endanger of being branded a ‘feeder club’. The Tottenham manager has warned against conveying such an image telling skysports, “If Tottenham sell Luka then I feel it sends out a message that maybe Gareth Bale could leave and no one wants either to happen.”
He is right to air such a concern as any Spurs fan will be all too aware of the inability to keep its best players: the transfer of Michael Carrick in the summer of 2006 and more recently in a British transfer record Dimitar Berbatov (£30.75 millon) both to Premier League Champions Manchester United. It is no surprise to anyone to read the champions are amongst the favorites to sign Modric this summer. Despite a dramatic change in fan opinion of both Carrick and Berbatov, Tottenham would be an elite outfit with both players at the club today.
I agree with the general point of the article, you dont want to gain a reputation for being a selling club. But it was only really Teddy Sheringham and Dimitar Berbatov where this has been the case. Michael Carrick was never a great player and for the money that they recieved it was Man United who were mugged there. Arsenal have lost a lot of their key players (Anelka, Vieira, Fabregas is wanting to leave etc) and I dont think Man Utd really wanted to lose Cristiano Ronaldo but they were forced into selling by Real Madrid. It happens to a lot of clubs that people want to move.
Sherringham was effectively kicked out of the club by Alan Sugar, because he threw his toys out of the pram when Spurs wouldn’t give him a 5 year deal.Gerry Francis recommended a 3 year deal because of his age. For full details read Alan Sugar’s autobiography pages 458-9.
I thought the Modric leaving trash / disgusting rubbish is a forgotten subject.
Lucre Mod rich….lol
“gaining a top four finish, the first in the clubs illustrious history” blimey mate you need to know your history!
Seems to me we did pretty well with the funds we got from Carrick and barbytoff.
Better to sell than suffer what berbatov did in wrecking a season for the club. Lets face it we done alright out of Keano and the Liverpool deals
Player trading happens, the media like to turn it into dramatic story’s. It’s because they couldn’t write an investigative piece if they had MI5 doing the reaserch.
The Lazy hacks have sold all our players and bought in everyone for us. So Harry can go and relax now because it’s all sorted.
Must be, it’s in the NEWSpapers
It’s mostly speculation fuelled by ignorance.Imagine for a moment you were Daniel Levy. Over almost ten years you’ve given every manager millions of pounds in order to reach the upper tier. Now look at Harry’s transfer record and the losses we’re likely to incur because of them. Keane will cost us about 10 million. Palacios about 4. Bassong 5-6 Crouch break even at best. Under Ramos/Comolli, Bentley 8-9 million, Hutton 5-6, need I go on. ENIC and Levy have endorsed every manager they’ve appointed and currently they’re expected to take these huge losses and again invest in a manager whose probably going to up sticks and leave quite soon..Over to you guy’s!