Thanks, Gareth

THANKS GARETH, WE APPRECIATE YOU FOR YOUR GENIUS… AND FOR NOT DOING A SOL CAMPBELL.
Now that the sale of Gareth Bale to real Madrid for 100€ million is confirmed, and having watched the loss to Arsenal there are a few issues that need to be discussed.

Firstly, we need to say thanks to Gareth for the memories. What a fantastic player he was and we can now remember him as another in the line of truly great, world beating players that we have been lucky enough to see down the Lane over the years. He was absolutely made by Harry Redknapp’s genius at man management, and further nurtured by AVB in the central role that showed the world his brilliance. Let’s not forget that under Harry he was a liability at left back initially, but was transformed into the hottest property left wing in the world.

Let’s not forget that we need to thank him for playing straight with us. That’s right, although he’s gone his honesty and integrity must be applauded. Let’s not forget our erstwhile captain and defensive colossus Sol Campbell was repeatedly interviewed about moving on from Spurs, and continually said he loved the club and wanted to stay, at the same time as winding his contract down so that he could go to our greatest rivals on a free transfer and secure himself huge wages because no transfer fee changed hands.

Gareth has not done that, he had completed one year of a four year contract. By signing up for a further four years and waiting only a year before moving on, he has made sure that Spurs could get absolutely top money for him. Football had become a financially complex and murky business, but we must accept that in this respect Gareth has done Spurs a favour and played it as fairly as he could. He has absolutely not deliberately undermined the club as many say Sol did. Gareth has allowed us to bring in 100€ million with which to restructure the playing squad going forward. We could not have done that without him.

Now on to the Arsenal game. We lost. We never win there. In my opinion the match was crying out for Gareth Bale. Neither side had a player that truly scared the opposition. Our lads have barely played together, so actually 1 – 0 to the Gooners was a reasonable result. Arsene was right in the sense that bringing in a lot of new players isn’t necessarily a recipe for instant success, and Man City and Chelsea have both shown recently that this is the case. I believe that we have a stronger squad on paper than last year, stronger than an Arsenal side which is actually one of the poorest versions of Goons I can remember. AVB needs to get them playing together and keep them together and maybe we’ll see some great football from them.

Where Wenger is completely wrong is over the value of Gareth Bale. This match , to my mind at least, showed that he is a unique talent. It shows that actually he is worth every cent of 100€ million. He could have changed the match at the end, running at a tired opposition from deep, he might have scored one of those sumptuous goals that made us love him. We’ll never know. He wasn’t there. There was quite simply no other player on either side capable of doing what he did. In my view there is no other player in the premiership of his calibre. Therefore his huge transfer fee is completely justified. He’s got a promotion and we must wish him well. Any working person knows that a promotion which doubles or triples your salary is not to be ignored, however much you love your current job.

I for one wish him well. I really appreciate that he didn’t stitch us up like Campbell did, arguably. I hope he’s a roaring success at Real Madrid. Spurs and the premiership will be poorer for his leaving. I just hope Spurs have first refusal on his coming back. I’m already setting my Sky+ to record Real’s games, to continue to marvel at the brilliant player we produced.

Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Have something to tell us about this article? Let us know