Gareth Bale - Win/Win or Lose/Lose?

Genuine questions about Bale for people...

Do you think he will be as good this year as he was last year?

I have a gut feeling he is going to get injured or have a poor season. Don't ask me why... I can't give you a reason, just a gut feeling.

At times last year he was awful but would score a stunning goal. What if his luck / confidence dries up this season or niggling injury stops him from producing some of that magic?

His passing, and decision making is, at times, woeful.

Don't get me wrong I love Bale, and think he is a top class player and the moments of magic he pulls off is incredibly rare, but do we think he can maintain this form?

****Edited this post to reflect that this post should be about whether Bale can maintain his form****

 

Wow.

Don't know where to start with this.

 

Players like Bale come along extremely infrequently, so infrequently in fact that it looks like we'll be making a world record fee on him. As you say, there is always the risk that, if we keep him, he won't be worth as much next year, either because he has an indifferent season or he gets injured.

I don't want him to go and I suspect that Levy's preference would be to keep him. However, if (and it is a very big if) the media reports are correct in that (a) Real has offered £86m (or £100m, according to one report), and (b) Bale has told Levy that he wants to leave, then we've got to take the money. We can buy half a Top 4 first XI for that sort of money.

And for those who cry "Bale isn't worth £100m," should bear in mind that if we sell him we'll be losing a hell of a lot of money in revenue from advertising and promotions, for which we are entitled to seek compensation from Real, in addition to the value ascribed to the player. I should imagine that the advertising revenue attached to Bale's name is a substantial sum over the length of the remainder of his contract.

 

Personally, while £90m is an amazing amount of money to a football club, a player like Gareth Bale is priceless. If the decision was down to me, I'd reject the money without much thought. Bale won us 22 points last season on his own... With Messi, Ronaldo, Falcao and van Persie aside, is there another player that can do the same? Very doubtful.

The fact you mention about how his play was pretty poor at the end of the season yet still managed to produce moments of magic shows the type of player he is. Bale is better than 99% of players in the game, there's no question about that and while £90m would be a great amount to receive, it's practically nigh on impossible that we could replace him. Sure we can TRY and get 3 or 4 top quality players (though does a club who's just sold their star asset sound appealing?) which would technically put us back into a "transition" phase which us Spurs fans have been saying now for the best part of a decade. I don't know about anyone else but I'm sick of being in what seems to be an everlasting transition, if we really want to push on, then Bale has to stay in my opinion.

 

Half a team? What about their wages? They'd want big wages seeing as how they'd be top names. What about the selling clubs? They wouldn't want to lose these top names for cheap - especially considering they'd know we'd have that money.

It's not like City where the money bank kept getting topped up - the £Xm is a static figure.

Also - these deals are never full up front deals - we're still owed £12m for Modric.

We'd be lucky to get 3 top names in our side - and on that, who would we even go for? Would they want to come to Spurs to play Europa League? I doubt it.

What we need to do is keep him for this season and get CL - we've strengthened really well so far (bar maybe a left back and shifting people out). If things stay as they are and we get Soldado in then I'd expect top 4 minimum (especially with Arsenal struggling to get Suarez).

If we get CL then we sell him for more because we can also offer Bale CL (same as Madrid) and we can also attract the better names because we're in the CL as well.

There's a lot of ifs in the above - more so if we sell.

 

Like most aspects of life these days, I think football is suffering from the cult of celebrity too.

There are a handful of players who are overhyped by the media because it seems to create interest and ultimately generates income. Bale, being one of the leading stars in the PL, has now joined that group, which, of course, includes Ronaldo and Messi.

As good as they may be, these individuals are but one player in a team of eleven. And their skills are enhanced and brought to the fore by the quality of the players around them. However, it is the best team that wins, as we saw when Bayern steamrollered Barcelona.

So no one player is really worth spending £80M on unless you have unlimited funds and a team of top players to play alongside him. Looking back, it's evident Utd were better off with £80M for Ronaldo than keeping the player (although the prudence of the Glazers at the time was a factor; they were only prepared to release funds which had been generated through sales it would seem). Spurs could massively improve the strength of the squad overall with £80M to spend. Spurs will cope well without Bale. The team did coped when Bale had an indifferent first half of last season. It was only in the second half of the season that he reached a level of performance where he was making key contributions on a regular basis.

On the other side of the coin, a top drawer player is good for the club commercially, generating income, raising the profile and helping to attract other good players to the club. But Spurs can't expect Bale to continually have the influence on the pitch that he did in the latter part of last season. You can't reject a huge fee for a player because he dug you out of holes on a number of occasions. The obvious response is that the team wouldn't need bailing out (excuse the pun) if the fee was used to bring in a number of players to strengthen it overall. If the team was lacking a functioning striker, creative midfielder and from too much inconsistency from "bits and pieces" players (Sigurdsson, Dempsey, Holtby), then any fee could go a long way to addressing those issues rather than hoping Bale works miracles again. I know Spurs fans will have in mind the ideal of keeping Bale and addressing those areas, but realistically, with the teams above likely to keep on strengthening with quality players, Spurs are having to spend big to keep pace rather than gain ground.

£80M for any player is too good to refuse.

 

The sorts of figures being banded about for Bale are ridiculous really, but I've no doubt Real are willing to pay it. Trouble for Spurs is that even with a shed load of cash it will be difficult to attract the same sort of quality to the club without Bale playing for you and without being able to offer them Champions League football. At the end of the day, Gareth Bale is pretty much irreplaceable. So for that reason, if I were a Spurs fan I would be desperate to keep him. The problem though, is that it's looking as though Bale has had his head turned and wants the move, so that changes the dynamic completely.

 

What seems to be forgotten is that Bale wasn't playing incredibly from when he moved into the middle(half way through the season) until the end of the season. He played poorly at times, had quiet games but the reason that's overlooked is that he would still score given half an opportunity. That's also a reason why he could be worth so much. Any player struggles with being singled out for special treatment by the opposition, let alone the double marking that Bale's been subjected for years but even with double marking there comes a point where tiredness sets in or a mistake is made and Bale has become so good at what he does that he can make you pay for that one lapse.

Teams aren't going to start treble or quadruple marking him next season so there's really no worry to be had in term of getting chances* but maybe you just think his ability to take the chances will go down. It's pretty simple how he creates his goals, that's why there are easy ways to keep him quiet for long periods in games. He uses his acceleration, strength and striking ability(ocassionally his close control too) to create the space and then take the chance and I can't see him coming back from the summer significantly slower, weaker or unable to strike the ball so well. Again it goes back to why he's so valuable, it's rare that a player can create and score so much by himself. Suarez is capable of similar at times and that's why Arsenal are prepared to gamble a lot of money on him despite his temperament and bad image.

Lets keep this about whether Bale can continue to reproduce his form though. Bale transfer speculation can go in the transfer thread as it has done all summer


*lets bear in mind that what constitutes a chance to Bale is anything from being 30/40 yards out from goal with the a half a yard of space from the closest defender or getting the ball in his own half with a defence on or near the halfway line.

 

Behave! Based on what?! Anyway, it was more like £60mill, wasn't it?

 

I thought it was £80m as it broke the record when they bid £81m for Bale.

I also agree to say United were better off with the Ronaldo funds is laughable. The only reason Spur's would even remotely be better off with the money is because we don't have a massively strong squad. If our squad could challenge for the PL (as United's could at the time Ronaldo was there) then a player like Bale / Ronaldo is absolutely 100% priceless as when they don't "provide that magic" the rest of the team can pick up the slack.

 

Well, he'd decided he wanted to go - which may or not be a factor here with Bale, the fee was huge, Rooney stepped out of his shadow and scored 34 goals the next season, a fifth of the money was spent on Valencia, who was an instant success, Nani started to come good and it could be argued that some of the funds are effectively still available to Moyes now to strengthen. All round it didn't work out too badly because the fee was so big and it justified the club saying that these were the only circumstances in which he could be sold.

 

...since selling him you've contested the Europa League, and had your worst nightmare realised...getting slapped around by the noisy neighbours for a season.

 

I was going from memory, I thought it was more like 60mill with the exchange rate at the time and that the record is largely measured in euros, which would make the sterling record higher at current exchange rates. Did a quick search and it looks like I'm wrong though.

I'm not saying there's not benefits to having more money to spend but was Rooney better than Ronaldo? Were the likes of Valencia all that special? Would they have even been unrealistic targets had you kept Ronaldo?

You're saying United became a better team without their stand out player, based on the assumptions that Rooney wouldn't have had such a good season otherwise and that Valencia couldn't have been signed. I could just as easily say you missed out on a whole load of cash and trophies in the 4 years since selling the second best player in the World, I mean it makes sense, just look how well you've done by signing the best striker in the league. Signing RVP finally gave you the kind of stand out player that every top team needs.

Anyway my main beef is that you made it sound like United have been clearly better off. You could have made a better point if you said that you sold your best player and didn't implode and infact did pretty well.

 

I think the point is one player - such as Ronaldo, however good, isn't the be all and end all of the team and can be sold. There will be times when that player makes an outstanding contribution that makes a difference, but if he's carrying the team then that's a big problem. Other players came to the fore after Ronaldo left (3 titles and runners-up by 1 point in 4 years is proof of that). Selling him didn't weaken the team to any great extent. Other key players stayed and the team evolved. Valencia isn't a comparable player, but he did a great job in the first two seasons on the right. Money was spent to bring in other players who have also had a significant impact - RvP more recently, but also Hernandez & Young and players for the future in Smalling, Kagawa, Jones & de Gea. Funds are now available to Moyes which might not have otherwise been.

 

So far this has led to......contesting the Europa League, and had your worst nightmare realised...getting slapped around by the noisy neighbours for a season.

Doesn't matter how you want to flower it, you're worse without, you may not have noticed...clearly!!...but everyone else has.

 

I am on the fence on this debate, firstly, Bale is without doubt a world class player and any team would want to keep him....BUT.... If and it's a big if rumours are to be believed that RM are to offer £51M plus Di Maria and Coentrao add to that the existing signings of Paulinho and Chadli and the potential signing of Soldado this has given us a squad that can IMO challenge for the title. I know there are a lot of if bits and maybes but if Levy could pull off that kind of deal and Bale wants to go I for one would be wish him well.
We would be getting a world class left back, a great creative midfielder in Di Maria and £50m to spend wherever else we wish to strengthen.

Win win for me, happy if he stays (obviously) and happy if he goes (as long as the deal is right for us).

 

But the question is how much of that 50mill would have to be used for wages?
Who could we attract being in the EL and not the CL?
Would it even get spent if it could? Or would levy hold it back?

 

Luck? What luck? The luck where he kept getting booked for being molested on the pitch? I think 1 of his goals was luck, WBA was it? The others were not lucky and there were plenty of others attempts that were well saved or narrowly missed to show his ball striking is not lucky.

And rare? RARE? Really? I say the moments of magic last season were pretty free-flowing. He topped 20 prem goals, most of which were beauties and scored more goals from outside the box than most teams. Don't forget that a LOT of those goals won games or rescued points and came at very important times (eg last minute southampton)

 

But Roo if we took this Madrid offer of cash plus 2 players and signed Soldado what other new players would we need? We would have brought in 5 potential first team starters, not squad players and I don't think we would need to look to sign anyone else.

 

There might be a gaping black hole called "creativity" which might need filling.

We miss elements of VDV and modric as it is, let alone if bale leaves.