Modric fee 30m possibly rising to 38m

"Would Levy go as far as to make his not joining the Gunners one of the conditions for agreeing terms on Modric?"

Don't think Madrid would agree to that, even if Levy asked.

The best way of making sure he didn't go to Arsenal is to have him join us as part of the package for Modric

Don't think Madrid would agree to that, even if Levy asked.
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Oh, I'm sure we would. Much rather see him getting minutes for a non-CL club, and if it's a condition for Perez to get his man, then I don't think he'd be too bothered about barring the Arsenal move.

Verthongen, the prob is that the player has to agree to any loan deal. Rumours here said that for whatever reason (perhaps because he was entertaining the idea of going to Arsenal) he didn't want to go to Spurs. The press here reckon Alonso has strongly recommended Liverpool to him.

Nothing more than speculation, but the fact that we're supposedly involved in potential deals with both Spurs and Arsenal got me thinking.

itsonly...after the way they treated him I'd be amazed if Alonso recommended anyone decent to Liverpool.

The whole thing with Sahin is he didn't want to go on loan, and the only comments I've seen attributed to him were made before Jose made the decision for him.

I'll be honest, after all the stuff we've seen coming out of the Spanish press lately, I wouldn't believe them if they said AVB was our manager!

If I'm not mistaken, it was Rafa who wanted to get shot of him, not the club or the fans. I'd imagine the feeling of walking onto the pitch on a European night at Anfield and winning a CL outweighs his problems with Benitez.

I generally keep track of Marca if I want a more or less credible source of information on Real Madrid, but not if what they're reporting is sourced from the Uk media.

Interesting to get your view on Marca and the Spanish press as we only see one side of it.

The perception I've had through all this is that Marca are Madrid's mouthpiece and seem to be making sure they get quotes from everyone at Real and in Croatia to help make the deal go through.

We've only seen reports in the UK press reprinting these stories, but it seems as the opposite is true in Spain?

Sorry mate, been out.

Yeah, it's often hard to know where rumours start - in this particular case, I recall reading a headline in AS on Tuesday night about Modric allegedly being set to fly to Madrid today, but I didn't read the article involved so I've no idea if it was their own 'scoop' or sourced elsewhere.

As for what other players are saying, I agree, Marca will keep pushing Modric headlines either until the deal's done or the talks fall through. For some time now, the sports rags in Spain have realised that these summer-long transfer sagas are the best-selling stories round about this time of year, so I honestly don't think they need any encouragement from Real Madrid.

As for the Croatian players talking out, that's gotta be Modric's doing I presume.

In any case, what sort of influence do these player statements have if Modric's made his mind up anyway. He's probably on the phone with his agent/club officials every other day and if any Madrid player wanted to send a message out to him, they could easily just phone the guy or get it through to him through mutual acquaintances, of which they'll have plenty - they don't really need to use the media at all, that just exposes them to criticism from opposition fans/media.

It just seems to be the way it's done with the big two clubs in Spain, I remember the Fabregas saga was the same with them touting all the players for their views on him joining. No idea what it really achieves other than to keep unsettling the player and the club.

What I do dislike is this business of them using player interviews to claim the moral high ground, making it look like we're in the wrong when they know what the price is and are looking for a cheap deal. If they're so worried about his welfare, just pay and be done.

With the Croats, that may also be due to Dinamo Zagreb having a vested interest as they had a sell-on clause in his contract with us.

I understand where you're coming from - I just don't think that these things are considered all that important over here. If a player's asked by a journo, he doesn't see a problem in saying "I think he's a great player and he'd be more than welcome here". I remember Valdés saying as much about Vidic, but to my knowledge he was never anywhere near joining Barça.

It's not only Madrid and Barça either, it's pretty common with players from any club, only it doesn't get reported over there because it doesn't involve English clubs.

With Fabregas, I'm pretty sure he'd have made his wishes known to Barça's players even before the deal fell through the previous season. Some of these guys are mates since their early teens and meet up regularly when playing for Spain, not to mention holiday periods when Cesc travelled back home.

Fair enough, nice to get a view from the other side