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22nd September 2018
05:01pm BST

Then-manager Kevin Keegan had managed to arrange a meeting with Modric's agent before the midfielder moved to Tottenham Hotspur but Keegan had been in the process of selling the benefits of choosing Newcastle when Tony Jimenez, the club's vice-president in charge of player recruitment at the time, pulled out of the deal.
"At one point I took a call from Luka Modric’s agent to ask if I would be keen on signing the player from Dinamo Zagreb," Keegan revealed in an extract from his book My Life in Football, published by The Times. "Modric had already been speaking to Spurs and his agent was honest enough to explain the move to White Hart Lane was likely to happen.
"His agent flew up from London. I explained what a great club Newcastle was, how the supporters would adore Modric and how we were looking for someone to spark us off. Then Jimenez piped up. 'Can I come in here?' he said. 'I don’t think Luka is good enough for the Premier League. He’s too lightweight. He’s decent, but he’s not good enough.'
"It was an awful moment and, 10 years on, it needs only a cursory glance at Modric’s achievements to realise what a nonsense it was. Even back then, however, it was laughable."
Modric was recently named Uefa's Player of the Year after winning three Champions League trophies in a row for Real Madrid and pulling the strings for Croatia en route to the summer's World Cup final.
Meanwhile, Newcastle signed both Danny Guthrie and Kevin Nolan in the summer of 2008 instead.Explore more on these topics: