Chelsea is close to putting in a final £35m offer for Spurs’ midfielder Luka Modric.
Andres Villas-Boas has stated that he needs six midfielders in his squad of 25 and he only had four.
Villas-Boas used John Obi Mikel, Ramires and Frank Lampard in the middle of the park with Josh McEachran an unused sub against Stoke City yesterday.
But it looks as if there is disagreement at Spurs between chairman Daniel Levy and boss harry Redknapp.
Redknapp will be happy to see the back of want-away Modric so he can sign Giuseppe Rossi of Villarreal, Athletic Bilbao's Fernando Llorente or Manchester City's Emmanuel Adebayor on loan.
But Levy is reported to want to bring in new players by offloading Peter Crouch and Wilson Palacios to Stoke.
As Arsenal has seen with the sale of Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona this weekend, if a player wants to leave there is no point keeping him.
The best solution is to get as much money as you can and move on.
That’s what Chelsea expect, it’s what pragmatic Spurs will ultimately accept – it’s now down to Roman Abramovich to sanction the cash outlay.
With Fernando doing well in all aspect of his game apart from scoring, Andre Villas-Boas is desperate to sign a creative midfielder in the Modic mode to provide the ammunition for Torres.