TOTTENHAM TAKE ON Monaco on Saturday without Gareth Bale, who misses the pre-season friendly in the Principality through injury ahead of a likely defining week for his forecast world record transfer to Real Madrid.
The Wales superstar bid “an emotional farewell” to his teammates in London on Friday, autographing their shirts before they left for Monte Carlo, according to a report in The Sun.
The Spurs forward sits out Saturday evening’s match, and may also miss Wales’ friendly against Ireland in Cardiff on August 14, with a minor hamstring problem.
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As Bale works on his fitness Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy will sit down for his first face-to-face talks with his Real Madrid counterpart Florentino Perez in Miami next week, possibly on Wednesday, The Times suggested.
Real are in Florida where Levy has a holiday home for a pre-season warm-up.
They are keen to see Bale at the Bernabeu ahead of their opening league game against Real Betis on August 18.
The 24-year-old is set to become the most expensive player of all time, an honour currently held by Cristiano Ronaldo who moved from Manchester United to Real for 94 million euros ($125 million, £82 million) in 2009.
Levy is reportedly holding out for a transfer fee in excess of £105 million while Real are looking to strike a deal at around £85 million with a makeweight, possibly Fabio Coentrao, thrown in.
On Friday, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger claimed Bale’s proposed mega transfer made a mockery of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules.
It makes a joke of it. It’s quite amazing that in the year where the Financial Fair Play comes in, the football world has gone completely crazy,” the Frenchman said.
“You wonder what kind of impact and effect it has on the football world. It looks like it has made everybody worse than before.”
My prediction: Bale to be the biggest transfer flop of this decade.
British players don’t perform too well at non-British clubs and I don’t think Bale has shown near enough to justify his price tag. They are paying Messi prices for a guy that was a non-entity a few years ago and has little champions league experience.
Could already define Moyes at Utd,
get Ronaldo and fans and players will really believe in Moyes,
dont get him like the other big names he has tried and failed to sign and a bad start will leave Moyes under pressure big time
Nobody could begrudge him a move like this (and he’ll do very financially out of it) but I’m sorry, good as Bale is, the amount is just crazy.
Spurs fans might be disappoint but I reckon the club won’t mind really. They can probably buy around 3-4 fairly decent players for this money which should help strengthen their overall squad. That has to be good business sense for them.
In fairness Bale does deserve to be at a top club. Any guy who can carry 10 donkeys to 1 point of champions league football doing everything himself will surely do well with top players around him! Simples!
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My prediction: Bale to be the biggest transfer flop of this decade.
British players don’t perform too well at non-British clubs and I don’t think Bale has shown near enough to justify his price tag. They are paying Messi prices for a guy that was a non-entity a few years ago and has little champions league experience.
He’ll have to be La Liga’s best player to justify that price and I don’t see him making the top 3.
Bale to Madrid & Ronaldo to United hopefully as a result !
Could already define Moyes at Utd,
get Ronaldo and fans and players will really believe in Moyes,
dont get him like the other big names he has tried and failed to sign and a bad start will leave Moyes under pressure big time
Nobody could begrudge him a move like this (and he’ll do very financially out of it) but I’m sorry, good as Bale is, the amount is just crazy.
Spurs fans might be disappoint but I reckon the club won’t mind really. They can probably buy around 3-4 fairly decent players for this money which should help strengthen their overall squad. That has to be good business sense for them.
I hope he does well. Great pro and works hard. His work ethic will have to quadruple to succeed.
This has disaster written all over it
In fairness Bale does deserve to be at a top club. Any guy who can carry 10 donkeys to 1 point of champions league football doing everything himself will surely do well with top players around him! Simples!