I'm probably being fuelled by delusion and denial (and large quantities of rum), but something stinks. Something other than the perspiration soaking my t-shirt.
Either I'm not quite grasping the tactics at hand between the interested parties for Luka Modric aided by the media's onslaught to continuously link him away from White Hart Lane and his football agent or we're knee-jerking because of the completely transparent and hardly ambiguous direct quotes the Daily Mail have shared with us. Which doesn't actually make it a knee-jerk. Just a nightmare.
This (Daily Mail) is a publication that is usually avoided by most of us because of their lack of substance on any given day. But behold, a day after Modric's agent tells the Guardian that there is no attempt to engineer a move and that the player is happy and would not seek to leave unless the club accepted an offer - we are to believe that someone phoned Luka on his boat, and pretty much got the perfect response that the likes of Chelsea and probably Man Utd have been waiting for. That's a massive turnaround of direction from one newspaper to another that is just about passable as a 'newspaper'. Not that I trust football agents.
I guess if you're going to engineer a move, you don't select the more esteemed outlet. If this is playing out as a genuine ploy of forced departure, then someone (guess who) is holding the hand of Luka's agent allowing for a damaging response to the initial rejection of the ridiculous £22M bid.
I can see a hefty penalty payment transferred to the Tottenham Foundation coming up in the near future.
I'm basically conflicted because Luka and his agent have been pretty straight up thus far. We've all been saying how a Berbatov scenario would not be birthed because our little Croatian is simply not of that ilk. But here we are. Naivety on my part?
He wants out. We're not ambitious. We're a stepping stone. He's not asking for a transfer but has made his position unattainable and as a result will push us back into that re-building transitional period that allows the survivors of Sky Sports monopoly to continue to stay that one step ahead. The suggestion from the narrative of the Mail's article is, go and agree a deal and let me go. On paper, it's pretty clear cut because you fancy even the Mail wouldn't print and then credit the person without them not believing it to be true. Would they? Bit naughty if they have.
Although if you re-read the article, it's nothing new - he's said most of it before - until the last couple of quotes. Reading it within the context of how the article is shaped up, it sounds fairly final. But it might not be.
Man, I'm hanging on for dear life.
Regardless of any of the above, it's what happens next. A Harry sound-bite, a Levy statement and a show of strength or perhaps a follow-up from either agent or Luka himself.
He has a lengthy contract and we can only pull a 'Cesc' and keep him hostage here if we remain strong to our word. If the player's heart is not in our Hart then it's a case of tagging him with a price (say £45M) and then it's up to Chelsea to prove how ambitious they are. Although if you're going to leave Spurs, you'd think you'd just wait for our parent club to make a bid first.
For now, I'm embracing my delusions (and polishing off the rum), and will blindly hold the hand of hope as I fall asleep and dream that come September 1st, Luka Modric will still be a Spurs player.