Gareth Bale came to Real Madrid with much fanfare and a hefty price tag. Alas, he is now deemed as a grumpy benchwarmer and was voted as the club’s worst player of the 2019/20 season by Real Madrid’s fans.
More antics, less minutes
His antics haven’t exactly endeared him to the media or the club’s faithful, which include pretending to fall asleep during a game and appearing to make a ‘binoculars’ gesture on the bench during his side’s 2-1 win at Granada. When Real Madrid won its first 34th La Liga title, and it’s first in three years, he appeared subdued and left out from most of the celebrations. This season he has scored just three goals and made 14 starts across all competitions. When those figures are placed up against his reported earnings of £350,000 per-week after-tax, the numbers did not simply add up.
With that being said, most would agree that Bale has accomplished what most footballers could only dream of – 105 goals, 4 Champion League’s titles and 2 La Liga titles. Alas, he has suffered an unfortunate relationship with the club and in particular, coach Zinedine Zidane. Spanish football expert Alvaro Montero shared with Sky Sports, “Their relationship is broken. They don’t even talk and they don’t have a good relationship. It’s purely professional. It’s not like the relationship he has with Sergio Ramos, Casemiro or with Luka Modric.”
“He’s the most expensive player in Madrid’s history, but Zidane has counted on Karim Benzema, Marco Asensio has come back into the fold after nine months out injured, Eden Hazard will get better while even Rodrygo, Vinicius and sometimes Lucas Vazquez are ahead of him.”
“Bale was a superstar four or five years ago, and when Cristiano Ronaldo left for Juventus, he was counted on to be the one who would replace his goals, but now he’s perhaps the sixth option.
“It’s impossible for him to resurrect his career at the club. He’ll be on the bench again next season and may play even less. It’s impossible for him to recover.”
Bale’s teammate, Toni Kroos, has also admitted the situation at Real Madrid is ‘unsatisfying’ for everyone at the club. Kroos, who has played with Bale for six years, told the Lauschangriff podcast, “There’s no getting around that the situation is unsatisfying for everyone. He certainly wasn’t brought in to play as little as he does now.”
What’s next?
In a shocking move by Real Madrid, Bale’s bid to join Chinese Super League club Jiangsu Suning last summer was cancelled by his team. The sooner he leaves, the better it is was the general consensus, but it appeared that offloading Gareth Bale is now a difficult task for Real Madrid with the forward still having two years remaining on his current deal at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Transfer to Manchester United?
The transfer links that reported Gareth Bale to Manchester United amplified over the past few months as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side are still in the hunt for a star forward. However, Manchester United are reluctant to pay the wages given Bale’s value and age.
Bale’s agent, Jonathan Barnett, spoke to BBC Sport and said: “Gareth is fine, he’s got two years left on his contract and going nowhere, he likes living in Madrid.”
It seems Bale isn’t going anywhere for now as Montero shared, “My feeling, however, is that Zidane is now going to stay and there won’t be the same surprise as there was two years ago. It doesn’t make much sense to me for Bale to stay, but he will because there’s no club who’s going to make a satisfactory offer for Madrid.
“It’s a marriage still, but they sleep in different bedrooms.”
