Tottenham’s Luka Modrić would be sorely missed by Premier League

Modrić will be missed if he leaves Spurs

It seems increasingly likely that Luka Modrić will leave England for Real Madrid and the “Croatian Xavi” will be sorely missed.

Tottenham Hotspur will make a very healthy profit on their record signing – he cost Spurs £16.5m in 2008 – and over his four years in England, he has quietly become, arguably, the best centre midfielder in the Premier League.

It took Modrić a season and a half to emphatically dismiss any accusations that he was too small for the Premier League as he adapted to English football, although he suffered a setback in August 2009, breaking his leg in Tottenham’s 2-1 win against Birmingham City.

However, since then, after being moved from a left-sided position to the centre of midfield as the fulcrum of Spurs, he has blossomed.

His ability to take his first touch away from the nearest defender is marvellous to watch and when on form he can simply glide past players. The Croatian’s range of passing is superb and, particularly, his outside of the foot through-balls are poetry-in-motion.

A lack of goals is probably his only weakness as he also proved to be capable of putting in the defensive work and showed a shrewd positional sense.

The Premier League will miss Modrić greatly but it is Real Madrid’s gain and he will be a joy to watch in La Liga next season as the 26-year-old creates numerous opportunities for the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Park is a shrewd signing by Hughes

By snapping up Park Ji-Sung for around £2m, Queens Park Rangers might just have completed the signing of the summer.

Park has been a superb servant to Manchester United since arriving from PSV Eindhoven in 2005. Originally a playmaker in the Eredivisie, he remoulded his game into a snappy, tireless midfielder.

In doing so, he made himself one of the first names on Sir Alex Ferguson’s team sheet for the club’s biggest games, culminating in a starting place for the 2011 Champions League final against Barcelona at Wembley.

As well as his world-class attitude and fitness levels, Park also had a useful knack of weighing in with crucial goals in his time at Old Trafford – as Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea would testify.

Finally, as South Korea’s outstanding player over the past decade, Park has garnered a huge following all over Asia, which will now benefit QPR as much as it did United.

At 31, Park is not quite what he was, but he still has plenty left in the tank and to acquire a player with his wealth of top-level experience is a huge coup for Mark Hughes.

All in all it’s a fantastic piece of business and, if more signings follow, the future really will be bright at Loftus Road.

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