SOCCER:HARRY REDKNAPP has admitted Luka Modric is "confused" regarding his future after the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder told the club he would like to join Chelsea, following their unsuccessful €25 million bid for him last month.
Spurs are intent on keeping the 25-year-old and Daniel Levy, their chairman, informed the player at a meeting on Wednesday he would not be sold. After Modric completed his first day of pre-season training yesterday Redknapp said: “He’s walked in today and is happy, but the kid’s a bit confused at the moment.
“Other teams want him but we want him here and I want to keep him. He loves playing here. It’s a difficult situation for him and I understand where he’s coming from. We can’t kid ourselves.
“He signed a contract here, we love him here and want him here. We don’t want to sell our best players. He’s a special player for us. We want him here and need him here.”
Nikky Vuksan, Modric’s representative, confirmed his client, who joined Spurs from Dinamo Zagreb for €18.5 million in 2008, would not request a move but repeated the Croatia playmaker’s statement of last month he wants to play Champions League football; Spurs, who reached the quarter-finals last season failed to requalify for the competition.
“I don’t think he’ll hand in a transfer request. He will honour his contract,” Vuksan said. “He wants to play [in the] Champions League and win trophies. The only way we can resolve this is to sit down and talk. Luka will report today for training and will do his best, as always.”
Samir Nasri has returned to training with Arsenal with the French midfielder currently content to play out the final year of his contract if the club do not receive a sizeable enough offer to tempt Arsene Wenger into selling him.
Arsenal have already dismissed Manchester United’s opening offer, thought to be just under €22 million, with the London club rejecting it out of hand. That stance has reinforced the feeling within Old Trafford that Wenger is rigidly sticking to his promise not to entertain doing business with any of Arsenal’s Premier League rivals, particularly United.
The feeling at the Emirates is that any serious bid would have to start at €28 million and, even then, United are not entirely convinced Wenger would be willing to sell to them if Arsenal can generate offers elsewhere.
Senior figures at Old Trafford know, for example, how intensely they would fight any bid from another top-four club for one of their top players, citing the lengths they went to in 2007 to prevent Gabriel Heinze joining Liverpool.
Manchester City are close to announcing a record sponsorship deal to allow Etihad Airways, the airline owned by the Abu Dhabi government, to take naming rights for the stadium in an agreement that will be a significant boost to the club’s attempts to fall in line with Uefa’s financial fair-play rules (FFP).
The deal will be confirmed at a news conference at Eastlands today, with the club potentially in line to bank well in excess of €111 million over the course of a long-term arrangement.
Guardian Service
