Listening to José Mourinho’s pre-Fulham press conference – in relation to Gareth Bale – it sounds like the 31-year-old is being seriously indulged by the Physio Dept. at Hotspur Way. I’ve made the point repeatedly in this place about Spurs having form for buying players with back-stories that clutter their integration and value. It now looks like Bale could be the biggest carrier of emotional baggage yet.
Mourinho referring to Bale as being scarred certainly makes sense when one is looking for answers as to why it has taken him so many months to even begin to play at the expected levels.
I’m struggling to understand how we got here with Bale. We live in an age of sports psychologists and incredibly high-tech private medical services, would none of this have come out if some basic due diligence had been undertaken. Instead, we appear to have signed a player on a rather wild emotional whim, whom we knew would need some love and affection, but not month upon month of full-blown rehabilitation.