Re: Gareth Bale
Loved his reaction last night, celebrating with AVB, couldn't stop smiling when walking off the pitch. Seemed to me like a player happy to stay for a while and as long as he doesn't start insisting on a move Levy can do his thing and only ridiculous bids could possibly be entertained. Will be interesting to see if Levy draws another line in the sand this summer like he did with Modric in the summer of 2011.
Right now I'm just delighted to see him in a Spurs shirt though, summer schmummer, let's enjoy the rest of the season. The goal last night really defies description, a picture (or gif) says more than a thousand words.
Berbatov and Modric were good business from the point of view that we got a big sum which actually was an overpricing from the impact of the buying clubs. Yes you have to think about money we might have lost from having a better team but we'll never know. If we lost Bale this summer we could still feasibly get in a couple of good players that keep our overall quality up, you won't replace Bale player for player but actually if we had a quality forward on form we'd be scoring the same number of goals.
As a fan I want us to keep Bale and I want us to build a new stadium. But if we got a huge fee of £70m+, a ridiculous overpricing again that we've seen before then I have no problem with us selling.
There are two other considerations though. The first is that because of financial fair play ther monster clubs can't actually afford to pay an absurd amount AND the huge wage he would command. I daresay we could probably even go up to a ridiculous salary on Bale ourselves ahead of anyone else.... Lets say £300k a week = £15m a year. If Bale stays, on this form he is worth a £15m signing every summer.
The other factor is bale himself. Does he want to go? If not, I really really hope Levy doesn't try to sell him. My - very weak "friend of a friend" - ITK is that he's happy at the lane and not wanting to move just yet. And this makes sense, look at the pictures from last night and how he speaks about the team. Why would he go? Money? We could pay more as I said and maybe he's happy with what he gets. Not everyone will accept £500k a week at the expense of playing in Chechnya. Location? With a young baby I could see this being a huge factor but only a British club would be a positive move but geographically nothing is gained going to Manchester or another London club.
The main reason he might leave is to look to go to a club with a high chance of winning a domestic title and champions league. But he's still young there is good time for him to move to a Milan or a Barcelona. Plus you need the right things, the right managers in place etc. Just like when he had the ball thirty yards out for Spurs these days.... maybe there's just nothing on for him right now!
Just listening to Talksport and Richard Keys has made out it would be easy to beat Gareth Bale "send him down his right side". Oh Keysey if only it was that easy. I have no doubt Bale and the team have a way of dealing with that, probably pushing Lennon and or walker on the overlap.