Danny Mills says Gareth Bale might be struggling because he is focused on his body as he continues to show poor form for Spurs.
The Welshman was brought in on loan from Real Madrid in the summer as Spurs sought to end their wait for a trophy.
He was expected to form a deadly front-three with Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, the prospect of which had Spurs’ fans licking their lips.
The attacker has, however, failed to deliver since his return in the summer and it doesn’t seem like he will impress in this campaign.
Mills says that Bale might be struggling because he isn’t confident that his body would be able to allow him to deliver the performance that is expected of him.
Bale has had many injuries, and that has seen him become too self-conscious when playing the game, and that is affecting his output at Tottenham.
“I don’t think it’s his pace that’s a problem, it’s a belief in his body,” Mills told Football Insider correspondent Connor Whitley.
“I think he’s at a point where he doesn’t have faith that his body can do what it used to do because of all the injuries that he’s had.
“He looked OK in a couple of the FA Cup games.
“He had his chance from the start and he doesn’t look his normal self.
“That’s because he’s doubting himself. You question if you can really push yourself to those limits.
“It’s hard to get out of that, it’s a very, very difficult mindset to get over.
“Mourinho doesn’t have the opportunity to give him 10 games and help him play through it. He needs results.
“It was quite telling last night, he’s since apologised for it, when the reporter asked ‘why did Gareth Bale come on?’ and he said ‘You don’t need to know’ or words to that effect.
“He’s obviously not doing enough in training to earn a start. Mourinho is not daft, he wants his best players out there and if Bale is superb in training day in, day out, you have to say he’s going to get in the team.
“I just think it’s a combination of belief and confidence in his ability.”
Not sure why someone salary is any part of your business. Jose is well paid and all he can is set up a team and system that play 80 minutes on our 18 yards box.
😂😜😁
Isn’t that what Redknapp tried to do …..oops!
Good question, if he was nineteen years old he’d be out on loan if anyone would take him.
Good observation.
For previous HK absences we had Dele and CE to make chances for Son and Lucas.
As you say, this season HK has been making and scoring his own chances, and providing virtually all assists for Son’s goals.
The warning signs were there last season though, as commentators and pundits started remarking on how deep HK was playing. He wasn’t doing that because he found scoring goals difficult, he did it because that was the only way he could get into and influence games. It is a failure of management, both Poch and JM to have allowed this situation to develop and persist. Resilience to overcome a critical player’s absence is surely a priority if you want to achieve anything noteworthy.
He still wants his £250K a week though plus the rest that he gets from RM. I think he has so much money now he just has not got the desire anymore. Plus he knows how poor the squad is and he needs world class players around him.This bunch have even managed to take the smile of Sons face and that says everything.I have seen several videos of the match against Chelsea and our players are literally walking around showing next to zero interest or intensity. That no matter how good or bad the players are is unacceptable and indicates a deeper issue behind the scenes.
Levy has no more cards to play….
If it had been more than Just Kane and Son involved in the goals under Jose I’d be thinking of ways to try and hurt the opponent’s defence. We are asking players to produce goals when they haven’t been before. Hard to see a way out of this before Kane’s back. Having said that I’m sure we can still beat WBA, they are truly hopeless…
A bigger problem we have is that in the past when Harry Kane was out we missed his goals and the story was about who in the team (Sonny) was going to replace Harry’s goals.
Now we have a bigger problem Kane’s game has evolved to include not just goals but creativity and assists for other players. We’re in an even bigger whole now with our over dependence on Harry.
We lack midfield creativity as it is but the full horror of how poor we are in that area is now on full display every time we take the field. Do we now need two players to replace Harry’s input?
Who is this Bale bloke?