Well just when we were running out of good transfer rumours, we've got a big one here. Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Luka Modric was the subject of a £22M bid by Chelsea this week, which was quite rightly laughed out of the room by the Spurs board. Word had it, however, that Modric wouldn't be disinterested were Chelsea to come calling, which piqued our collective interest. Word did not have it that he was going to go more doe-eyed than Jane Eyre around Edward Rochester, but, hey. Life is full of surprises. Some interesting quotes after the break...

I want to leave Tottenham as friends. I have enjoyed my time there, but now it is right for me to look at another club. I have an arrangement with the chairman. When I signed my new contract, he said that, if another club came to sign me, they would consider the offer.

Chelsea are a big club with an  ambitious owner. They have great players and they have ambitions to fight for the title and win the Champions League. I want to stay in  London. I am very happy here and so are my  family. I like the city.

I don’t want to have an argument with Tottenham. The supporters have been very good to me and I have enjoyed my time playing for the club, but it is for football that players leave clubs and move. It has happened to Tottenham before. It is normal for a player to dream about playing for a bigger club.

-Luka Modric. Source: Mail.

Uh... huh. According to that article (and reported elsewhere), Chelsea are expected to submit an improved bid for Modric next week, bringing the price to around £30M. If they can land him for that sort of money, it would be a major boost to a Chelsea midfield that's been all kinds of stuffy lately. I'd be curious to see who it would displace from the lineup - perhaps Frank Lampard? - but I suppose that's getting ahead of myself.

All I can say is that we like you quite a lot too, Luka. This all sounds very promising. I'm not entirely ruling out the Mail just making all of this up, but even that seems unlikely.