Newcastle In For Top Croation Midfielder
Wednesday April 23rd, 2008 by Ed Harrison· 26 Comments
There is some very interesting news today that Newcastle have flown Croation midfielder Luka Modrić into Newcastle, and already talked to him about a possible move to Newcastle United in the summer.
Luka Modric - Newcastle have already made their move
The news is that Modric and representatives from his club, Dinamo Zagreb were flown into Newcastle recently by private jet to negotiate the sale of Luka Modric. Reports in Zagreb today suggest they arrived at midday and were back home by 6:40pm.
The transfer window doesn’t open until five or six weeks time and Newcastle will be facing stiff competition from Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and even Barcelona, but reports in Zagreb suggest Newcastle are the club that are in the lead for his signature.
Dinamo Zagreb have been told the signing of Michael Owen’s contract is the Tyneside club’s first priority, and expect Modric’s signature to be their second priority, and hope to complete the signing quickly.
We cannot say this is a true report but there’s an awful lot of detail in the report, that was translated from local reports in Zagreb.
Silvio Maric was transferred to Newcastle from Dinamo in early 1999, when Ruud Gullit was manager at Newcastle, so there are good existing relationships between the clubs, even though Silvio was hardly a success on Tyneside.
It will be important for Newcastle to move very quickly for any top players on their list, because they are at something of a disadvantage with not being able to provide European Football next season.
Luka has played for Dinamo Zagreb 85 times and scored 25 goals since 2005, and has played 24 times for Croatia and scored 3 goals. But he is still just 22 years old and stands just under 5′9″ in height.
We think Luka is exactly the type of player we need at the club - he’s a top class player, there’s no doubt about that.
The question is whether we can get him to the club, in the face of competition from teams that can offer him European competition next season.
http://nufcblog.com/2008/04/23/transfer-news/newcastle-in-for-top-croation-midfileder/