The Play Bale! Mantra has begun to give me a headache. Some fans regard it as a pressing issue and these flames of discontent have been fanned by the likes of Harry Redknapp et al. calling for the Welshman to be given a run. Personally, I believe that Levy’s loaning of a lemon is the worst kept secret in football, and this is yet another stick with which to debase the Portuguese with.
If we remove from our minds the romantic twaddle surrounding Bale, the whole taxi for Maicon thing, and instead look at the 31-year-old’s last season for Real Madrid, then that is surely a fair point to aim for. It would be unfair to ask for more.
In Gareth’s last season in Spain, he made 14 starting line-ups, out of which he was brought on from the bench 4 times and subbed off on 6 occasions.
Zinedine Zidane managed to squeeze out just 2 goals and 2 assists.
Elsewhere, Bale’s numbers provide little indication he was still worth big bucks. Overall passing accuracy was only 78.8%. Long ball specialist? Not really he averaged 53.2%. Ah, but he bet he could still whip a cross in, eh? Only 36.4% of them were successful.
NB: None of these numbers are skewed, incidentally. Bale was managing to average 90-minutes per game.
So what’s the solution?
I’d be inclined to play Gareth in every single game, just to ram the reality home for those still struggling to appreciate the difference between a player that Real Madrid wanted to break the bank for, and the player Real Madrid had become utterly sick of.