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The news today is that Chelsea are lining up a bid of £27 million plus Daniel Sturridge to lure Luka Modric away from White Hart Lane. The Betfair market is undecided whether he will still be a Spurs player when the transfer window closes; it's pretty much evens the pair.

There are plenty of reasons why Tottenham should reject the bid and tell Chelsea they have no intention of selling such a key player to a rival club.

For all of Gareth Bale's early season form, flashes of brilliance and unprecedented hat-trick at the San Siro it was the little Croatian who was alongside Michael Dawson their most consistent player over last year's campaign. He provides that vital link between defence and attack and has what football pundits like to describe as a great footballing brain, seeing things the other players on the pitch don't, or at the very least, before the others do.

Then there's the message that it sends out. Chairman Daniel Levy doesn't want to give the impression that star players under contract decide their own destiny. The club decides who they sell, which club they sell to and for what amount of money.

The problem with all this is that the bid is simply too good to turn down. If it's true that Sturridge is indeed part of the package, we're essentially taking about a bid worth somewhere between £40 and £45 million. After all, this is a young English striker who showed at the back end of last season (when on loan at Bolton) that when given a decent run of games in the team he can score plenty of goals at Premier League. And these guys aren't cheap: think Jermain Defoe a few years back, or Darren Bent. And neither of them had many England caps at the time, either.

The Sturridge factor is an important one. Defoe has somewhat fallen out of favour at White Hart Lane. His nine goals came at a healthy rate of just under one in every three games but he made just 30 appearances in a long old season for Spurs. Peter Crouch scored eleven but will be best remembered for a few minutes of madness at the Bernabeu, earning two bookings for a couple of reckless tackles and effectively ending Spurs' chances of making a semi-final in their debut Premier League season. Roman Pavlyuchenko is popular with the fans and ended last season with fourteen goals to his name but he's a player who goes through as many bad patches as he does good streaks. Harry Redknapp may be thinking that it's time to freshen up his options up front and the inclusion of the former Manchester City man in any deal would all but eliminate the usual need for disagreements over transfer fees and accusations of unsettling other clubs' players; he'd basically arrive at White Hart Lane on a plate.

We know Modric is a great player and one Spurs can't replace with anyone else currently in their squad. Jermaine Jenas has been out-of-sorts for a while now, Tom Huddlestone lacks the mobility and ingenuity of Spurs' number 14 (if not the passing range) and asking Niko Kranjcar to fill in for his fellow Croatian is asking a little too much of a player who didn't feature much last season and at one stage wanted out.

But a bid in excess of £40 million for an unsettled player who wants to leave is one Spurs simply can't turn down.

Scott Parker is a different animal to Modric of course but a guaranteed first-team place at another London club could be pretty tempting for the West Ham man; any team with Parker in the side is a stronger team for it. A player's transfer value drops when his side are relegated and at 30 years old, £10 million could be enough to capture the former Charlton skipper. The remainder could be used to politely enquire about someone like Mikel Arteta or attempt to get Adel Taarabt to return to his former team.

The last issue of course is that Chelsea aren't really a rival club as such. They're the 3.75 second-favourites to win the Premier League, Spurs are 50.0. Chelsea are prohibitively short at 1.14 to finish in the Top 4, new manager or no new manager, Tottenham are out at 4.7. Spurs fans may argue they're competing at the same level as their fellow Londoners but the Betfair markets don't agree. And there's no disgrace in selling one of our main assets to a team with greater ambitions than yourself.

The reasons for keeping Modric at White Hart Lane are plentiful but common sense and good business prevails over them all.

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