Old Trafford side want White Hart Lane playmaker.
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United in £50m bid for Modric as Spurs playmaker is Fergie’s top target
Luka Modric, the brilliant Croatia midfielder who has masterminded Tottenham’s emergence as title contenders, is now Manchester United’s No 1 transfer target for the summer.
But it will take a £50million bid by United to prise away the 26-year-old, who has another chance to grab the limelight today as thirdplaced Spurs take on League leaders Manchester City on the Premier League’s biggest day of the season so far.
United, who face Arsenal in today’s other clash of the titans, see Modric as their preferred long-term replacement for Paul Scholes, brought out of retirement in the last two weeks to rescue a midfield further depleted by injury to Tom Cleverley and Darren Fletcher’s chronic health problems.
SOURCE: Daily Mail
Man United may well want Luka Modric but whether Tottenham will sell the Croatian, regardless of the offer on the table, is another matter. White Hart Lane chairman Daniel Levy stuck by his guns when Chelsea came calling and is likely to do likewise if the Old Trafford giants try to lure the 26 year old away from the North London club.
Levy knows that Tottenham’s progression as a major footballing superpower is at stake and to sell to a ‘bigger’ club would essentially illustrate that whilst Redknapp has done a marvelous job to cement the club’s spot in the top four they would still be considered as only squatters at the top table and not members of the coveted Champions League club.
Also to consider offers for Modric would undoubtedly send a message to the club’s other top performers, such as Gareth Bale and Rafael Van der Vaart, that Tottenham are a selling club and if they were to accept advances for the former Dynamo Zagreb man then similar offers would come in for the high profile stars, something Messrs Redknapp and Levy can ill afford to let happen.
Sir Alex Ferguson has been linked with many possible creative midfield purchases and with his squad tested by the injuries to Cleverley and Fletcher and the recent return from a lay-off of Anderson, the Scot felt compelled to ask Paul Scholes to return but clearly this is only a short term solution.
Indeed it’s some years since Scholes was the advancing, goal-scoring assist making player he was at his peak, he is now a more considered measured performer and Ferguson may feel that Modric would provide that invaluable link between midfield and attack that his Man United first team is lacking.