Since the season ended approximately 48 hours ago, there have been 58,463 rumours appearing on the Internet, in the newspaper and via word of mouth about the future of Gareth Bale. Is he demanding a move? Is he happy to remain at Spurs for the foreseeable future? Is he demanding a huge increase in his wages? I don’t know – I'm not one of those ‘ITK’s. But regardless of what he wants, is it in his best interests to leave?
Initially it might appear that it is. Spurs missed out on Champions League qualification on Sunday despite a 1-0 victory over Sunderland at White Hart Lane – in which, coincidentally, Bale scored yet another wonder goal. A player of his quality deserves to be performing on the highest stage and that is certainly not the Europa League. The common expression ‘to be the best, you have to beat the best’ seems to ring true as Bale can’t profess to being one of the best players in the world until he scores wonder goals against Dortmund, Munich, Barcelona or Madrid.
But is it too early? He is still only 23 years of age and as shown this year, he is only improving. If he did move to Real Madrid, and he didn't perform up to the expected standard, then he could quickly be hounded out of the club; the transfer from London to Madrid did not work too well for former team-mate Luka Modric. Also, he has an extremely young partner and a baby; do they really want the huge lifestyle change involved in moving to a completely different country?
Finally, Bale has a lot to thank Spurs and Andre Villas-Boas for. Bale has only been playing as well as he has now for the last couple of months, and that seems to be down to the man-management ability of the Portuguese maestro. Just look at how Bale sprinted over to celebrate with AVB when he had scored that wonder-goal at Upton Park to give Spurs a 3-2 victory; there is clearly a lot of man-love going on there. With Real Madrid and Manchester United both appointing new managers, who knows whether a new coach would be able to inspire him to reach the same heights next year as he did this.
Although he deserves to playing Champions League football, I think it is 1-2 seasons early for Bale to leave his beloved Tottenham. What do you think? Should he stay or should he go? Does he deserve a chance to perform on club football’s greatest stage?
Source: DSG
