Using Spurs as a keep-fit class shows where Bale’s priorities now lie
ANYONE else looking forward to the next banner Gareth Bale poses behind?
Wales. Golf. Madrid. Spurs. In that order.
When Bale smiled for the original it was funny, wasn’t it?
Taking the mickey out of Real Madrid.
Now, it is not quite so funny when Bale is telling Tottenham exactly where they stand in his pecking order.
A glorified keep-fit class ahead of the European Championship.
“The main reason I came to Spurs was that I wanted to play and be match-fit for the Euros,” said Bale, while away on international duty this week.
No wonder it took a while for Jose Mourinho to give Bale a Premier League start and no wonder he has since bombed him out again.
Mourinho is a pragmatic coach, not one to cut off his nose to spite his face, and will use him if needs must.
But do not be surprised if Bale does not start another match for Tottenham.
His schedule, anyway, is to return to Madrid for next season. “The original plan was only to do a season at Spurs,” Bale has confirmed.
“After the Euros, I’ll still have a year left at Madrid. My plan is to go back.”
And in one, honest press conference, Bale exposed any ideas his return to Tottenham was underpinned by ANY sort of emotional connection and personal bond with a club he holds dear as utterly fanciful. It was a move of pure convenience.
If there were any heartshaped hand gestures from Bale, they were not aimed at Spurs – they were just a better option than the treadmill at home.
Although Mourinho gave him that run of games in the second half of February and early March, you suspect Jose knew exactly why Bale was at the club and bridled against it.
Listen to Mourinho’s comments after he left Bale on the bench for the 2-0 victory at Aston Villa last Sunday.
He said: “My thinking (with the team selection) was we need angry people, we need fresh and positive feelings.
“We need kids on the bench that live a dream, kids that if you play them for 10 seconds, they play them like their last seconds of their career.
“I need people on the pitch that I know the match is really important for them.”
It all made sense a couple of days later when Bale essentially admitted the only way in which Tottenham matches are ‘really important’ to him is to get him in trim for Welsh duty this summer.
Back to that banner. It would be interesting to know how many Spurs fans would feel let down by Bale’s attitude.
Did anyone really think the player’s motives were somehow nobler?
The clue is in one word. Loan. If you are a genuinely elite club, you should be above borrowing players. It is quite simple. It is not a complicated theory.
Bale does not belong to Spurs.
His contractual future has nothing to do with how well Tottenham do. There is no jeopardy.
That is why the games are not ‘really important’ to him.
After this season, he has got a year left at Madrid on six hundred grand a week, or whatever it is.
And if Mourinho decides, on a point of principle, he does not want to field a footballer whose head is in it, but not his heart, then you could not blame him.
Because whether you find it palatable or not, whether you would criticise him for it or not, the player’s priorities are clear.
Bale. Wales. Golf. Madrid. Spurs. In that order.