Bayern Munich are staging meetings to decide whether to make one last bid for Harry Kane or wait for his contract to run, as their latest offer was understood to be still at least £10m short of what Tottenham would accept.
The England striker wants his immediate future settled before the Premier League starts this weekend, which puts another element of time pressure on the deal.
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy did nevertheless delay a response to Bayern on their third offer earlier this week, and the feeling is that he was unimpressed by the German club's attempts to force the situation by setting a deadline of last Friday.
All parties are now effectively conditioned by Kane's own deadline, although Bayern themselves want any deal in place before this weekend's German Super Cup against Leipzig.
The Bundesliga champions have four options available to them, all of which will be discussed over Tuesday.
One is another bid, although it remains to be seen whether they would go high enough to match Levy's demands.
The second is waiting until January, when they could well get Kane for a knock-down price, in a similar manner to Christian Eriksen's exit for Internazionale in January 2020.
A third is negotiating a pre-contract once Bosman rules allow at that point. A fourth, currently being mooted, is acting on longstanding interest in Eintracht Frankfurt's Randal Kolo Muani.
Kane has entered the final 12 months of his contract at Tottenham, but ignored the noise around his future to score four goals in a 5-1 friendly win over Shakhtar Donetsk on Sunday.
Dejan Kulusevski set up Kane’s hat-trick strike and hailed the professionalism of his team-mate.
“He scored four goals, so very good,” Kulusevski exclaimed. “Nah, he’s unbelievable. Honestly, his mentality, I can learn from him like everybody. He just goes out and performs day in day out.
“He’s a true professional. I’m happy I helped him score today but of course we want him to stay and we’ll do everything to make him stay.”
