Reigning Premier League champions Manchester City's initial offer for England skipper and Tottenham's talismanic striker Harry Kane was only worth $103 million instead of the $137 million quoted earlier.
The latest development has made the North Londoners believe that they are tantalisingly close to sealing the 28-year-old's stay at his boyhood club, which he has represented since 2004.
Daniel Levy has often repeated that Kane is not up for sale and his determination to keep him at Spurs has not changed in recent days, despite City raising its offer on several occasions from approximately $103 million to $135 million to $170 million.
With City struggling with their forward line-up, a fact accentuated by their loss in the Premier League opener to Spurs, Guardiola is extremely keen to land Kane.
But Levy has so far rebuffed all his advances.
And with only seven days left before the summer transfer deadline ends in the United Kingdom, Tottenham's management has grown increasingly confident about Kane's future in the British capital.
They feel that any agreement on Kane is nearly impossible, especially after seeing Levy's unwavering will to keep Kane in North London.
City has already splurged a British record $135 million for Aston Villa captain and forward Jack Grealish, but are desperately looking for another striker.
Guardiola has been a longtime admirer of Kane and they are expected to make a fresh offer for the England captain this week.
But the interesting aspect of City's latest bid would be Kane's valuation.
While the Premier League champions were willing to pay as much as $170 million for Kane as per their last offer, Levy was not even interested in evaluating their bid as he believed that Kane is worth $210 million.
However, as things stand now, even a $210 million offer would possibly not be enough as Levy seems to be sticking to his stance of not allowing Kane to depart from Spurs.
With Levy blocking Kane's move to the Etihad with a firm hand, City have been left with no choice but to turn their focus away from him and look for another world-class striker.
But time is running out for them as they look to find a player to replace Argentine star Sergio Aguero, who left City for Barcelona earlier this summer.
Meanwhile, Kane has stayed away from the drama that has been unfolding over his exit from Tottenham as he has committed himself to the club in the past week.
He played his first match of the new season for Spurs when they beat Wolves 1-0 on Sunday.