Bale to Madrid May not have been the BEST Move

We're now in the third season of Bale's humongous big money move to Madrid, and I've begun to think a bit longer as to whether or not this was the right move to make.

Look, let's not try and kid ourselves. If we were playing for Tottenham, and Real Madrid offered to buy us, we would be insane to reject such an offer. Unless we had some sort of a shovel through our brain which would prevent us from rational thought and even then, I still think the shovel would have told us to leave Tottenham. In short, that contract is getting signed and we would jet away from North London as quickly as possible.

Bale's first season at Madrid has to be one of the best debut seasons I can remember. Especially when you keep in mind the club he was playing for, the amount of money they spent on him and just how much pressure was on this Welshman's shoulders. To score a goal like that in the Copa Del Rey final, and the key G that turned the game in their favor against Atletico in the Champions League final, who could have dreamed of more in their first season?

It's always harder in your second season, whether you're a player or a manager. Bale found it tough. Defenders had figured him out by denying him space, he had injury problems, and for some inexplicable reason, he decided to grow muscle just like his "idol", Cristiano. The season was not a disaster as some Madrid fans would have you believe, but it just was a considerable downgrade from the first one. But as I said to all, he had one good season, now a bad one, surely give him another go to work on what went wrong and get back to being as effective as he was in the Champions League winning campaign.

Looking at him this season, I'm beginning to think that this move to Madrid was probably not the right one for him. He's just not been able to evolve his game or be smart enough to create space for himself in order to be effective in a game. Bale knows he's not a technically gifted player, and so if he's put in a tight spot, he doesn't have the movement or ingenuity to get out of it. So what you're seeing is a player who can pop up at random times scoring amazing goals, but mostly, he's been shackled by defenders who know how he's going to hurt them. That has lead me to believe another club would have probably been more appropriate.






The thing about La Liga, [and please, I will be the first to agree with anyone who insults the league where professional teams happily concede seven, eight, nine goals in a match] is that it's a highly technical league. The individual abilities of players is very high, and there isn't really any space of the type of thugged out football played by the great Stoke City. So the issue is that Bale doesn't have that kind of technical ability he can rest on unlike Isco who surely has proven that Madrid need him more on the pitch than warming a bench. If Bale had that, in those tough games where he's denied space, he'd be able to get past defenders and make space for a shot. We all know that if you give Bale space to shoot, there's a good chance the keeper will need to stretch some veins to try and deny it from bulging the net.

Got me thinking....what if Bale had gone to United?


That's right, Manchester United. The same club that are somehow fielding the illegitimate child known as
Wayne Rooney. Looking at United, as well as the kind of football played in the Premiership, Bale would have fit in perfectly. In La Liga, there's just no room for the kind of space that you get in England and because there's such an urge from fans to always attack and to run on the British island, Bale would always been given that kind of freedom to run with the ball and have shots on goal. That is why Cristiano had such a field day when at United, and why he had to alter his game when he moved to Spain. I don't think Bale can alter his game and he is what he is. Let me be clear though, what Bale offers is still something that any team in the world would want. This is the business of being effective and winning, not looking pretty and doing skills for the sake of doing so.

With the issue of Perez and Rafa, the future of Madrid doesn't look too bright. I doubt Bale will be at the club much longer, and if he is to be sold or has a chance to leave, he ought to take it. He's a Premiership player, and a very good one at that. It's not being insulting to him, it's just trying to point out what his strengths and weaknesses are. Everyone has them...apart from Ronaldo before his knee injury. But hey, how many Ronaldos are we going to see?



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