The madness surrounding Gareth Bale.

Gareth Bale is an outlandishly gifted footballer. He has pace to burn, superb ball control, a wicked shot that not only packs a punch but seems to have a mind of its own, swirling and swerving at will. Gareth Bale has grown to be a deadly dead ball specialist. He is good in the air. If defenders mark him close, he’ll run away from them; if they give him space, he’ll hit a screamer into the roof.. Gareth Bale was forced to use his right foot ONLY, in the youth academy, to make things fair for the other kids!! That’s how good his LEFT FOOT is. But is Gareth Bale worth £80m or whatever the *expletive* Madrid are allegedly willing to pay for him.I have even seen stories claiming that Madrid are willing to go as high as £100m! I under stand Florentino Perez’ need to present a marquee signing every summer but isn't this a bit ludicrous?

Firstly, I’d hardly think Los Merengues are in desperate need of the Welsh flier. Realistically, Madrid have two open attacking slots; di Maria wide on the right and Benzema up top.( I am assuming Ronaldo and Ozil are untouchable). I don’t think the ape man would be as effective stuck out wide on the right like di Maria; and I don’t see Ancelotti  using a striker-less formation (.ie. dropping Benzema to fit Bale in; or Ronaldo being moved up front and Bale starting nominally on the left). All this would seem like too much of a hustle without vastly improving the team. There is also the small matter of the versatile €32m Isco, who can play anywhere across the three positions behind the striker.

Bale launches a 'Hail Mary' to save Spurs

Surely Madrid’s attack is as good as anybody’s, including Bayern Munich. I would think they would use their remaining transfer funds to shore up a defence that let Robert Lewandowski ran riot at Signal Iduna Park three months ago. Alvaro Arbeloa seems to be particularly suspect, Pepe could use a some anger management classes; and Marcelo is a wing back/winger whom Mourinho managed to turn into an okay defender.  Madrid would be better served surrounding Ramos and Varane with better quality.

As for Bale’s price tag itself, even in a market that has been sullied by Russian and Arab petro dollars, £85-£100m is just silly. Napoli’s president Aurelio de Laurentiis recently stopped short of rebuking PSG for paying €63m(~£50m) for Edinson Cavani. He described it madness.  I wonder what he’d say about Bale going for twice the amount. To put in context, Juan Mata cost £22m, Luis Suarez is going for ~£40m, RVP went for £24m, Hazard cost £32m, even the slightly overrated Neymar cost ~£40m. To use a rudimentary yard stick, Tottenham and Madrid are trying to convince themselves that Bale =(Suarez + RVP + Neymar) or =(Mata+ Hazard + Kun Aguero + RVP)

NB: Forgive the very rudimentary and rural proportionality method used above. I know the free market determines prices but this tool suffices to make the larger point.

What is perplexing, if rumours are to be believed, is that Tottenham are refusing to sell even with those obscene prices dangled in front of them. Either Daniel levy is a very savvy businessman, or he’s a raving lunatic who will soon strip off and start talking to himself on street corners.  With 100m, Levy would solve all of Spurs problems(left midfield and up front) in the blink of an eye; and even have a large chunk of scratch to buy a few backup squad players, plus a small yatch! Besides Bale’s depature,  if adequately replaced with two or three players, would serve to relieve Spurs of the Bale-dependency that we saw all too well last season.

 Here is a scenario, sell Bale; buy long term target Leandro Diamao(~£20m), Angel di Maria(~20m) and Nani(~15m). Hell, get the 100m and bid 60m for Suarez, then buy a creative midfielder, preferably who can operate slightly on the left; Julian Draxler and Nani pop to mind. Surely that would make a better more well rounded team than the bunch of boozers who, at times last season,  sat back and watched Bale save them time after time with ‘Hail Mary’ rockets.

Lastly, and this is with all due respect to Bale, his talent level is just not worth £100m. I mean he is quick, explosive and all but his game doesn’t have the nuance that would be expected of a player worth that money. His passing and vision is good but not world class for example. One can see players like Marco Reus, Eden Hazard, Mario Goetze, Jack Wilshere(injury allowing) to mention but a few, developing into better all round players than the Welsh wizard.

In my opinion, this ruckus is the result of two factors; one would be that Bale being British, is overrated(in price terms) as most Brits are. The Jordan Hendersons and Stewart Downings of this world being more pricey than the Santi Carzolas is proof of this phenomenon. The second factor would be that Florentino Perez is obsessed with building these super galactico teams despite the fact that these projects have always blown up in his face. He disbanded a team that had won two La Ligas and two European crowns; to build a team that won one Zidane inspired Champions League and handed over domestic dominance to Barca. The Kaka-Ronaldo-Benzema experiment folded under the force of nature that is Messi-led FCB. But Perez won’t rest.

It ‘s a free market and people are allowed to spend their money how they wish but Gareth Bale is just not worth £85m+. And I really rate him as a player but only genuinely, absolutely, incredibly, outrageously gifted footballers should cost that much. In this era, only Leo Messi should cost more than Christiano Ronaldo let alone cost £100m.

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