Ben Davies has claimed that a lot of the criticism aimed at Gareth Bale this season has been unfair and confidently asserted that he believes the winger will prove pivotal for Tottenham over the next few months.
Bale seems to have now turned a corner, having scored four and assisted three times in his last four games in all competitions.
The Welshman was written off by many pundits, with his desire to prove himself at the top level being questioned.
The 31-year-old now looks to be proving many of his critics wrong and Davies admitted that he finds it difficult to comprehend that his Wales international teammate still gets questioned despite all that he has achieved in the game.
The left-back told The Daily Mail: “When you have players of his quality, the levels he has reached in the game, whether it be Gareth Bale, Cristiano, Messi, everyone has a story about them being great now or poor the next day or not reaching the heights they have reached.
“Gareth has had a lot of criticism, probably unjustly, when he was at the top of his form. He is an incredibly tough person to have to deal with some of the stuff he has had to deal with off the field and still perform the way he has throughout his career.
“Even after four Champions Leagues, what he’s done for the national team, what he did for Real Madrid, he still gets questioned about his ability. That must be tough to take. I think he deals with it pretty incredibly. He is a terrific footballer and a great bloke.”
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Davies also suggested that some people were expecting too much too soon of Bale on his return to Tottenham and suggested that the on-loan Real Madrid man still has plenty of quality.
He said: Expectation is all opinionated. You might have had a different expectation to what I had.
“Gareth is Gareth. He always gives his best and I think we have seen in games this year, he has scored goals and made assists.
“He has got the quality there. I am sure we will see it for the rest of the season.”
With their 4-0 win over Burnley on Sunday, Spurs now sit just six points off West Ham in fourth place with a game in hand over the Hammers.
Davies revealed that the players still believe that they can get back into the race for the top four spots if they put a run together and insisted that Bale can help the side finish the season strongly.
He added: “We want to finish as high as we can and we certainly don’t want to be where we are now.
“This season is a bit mad to be honest. It’s very up and down. If we go on a little run, and it doesn’t need to be too drastic, we can be back in the mix.
“It has been very strange, it is definitely a blip but one we want to put to bed now and turn it around.
“We all know the quality Gareth has and we are going to have a lot of games where he is going to be vital for us. I am looking forward to seeing him out on the pitch.”
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It was not just pundits and opposition fans who were writing Bale off but some Spurs fans were also guilty of the same thing. It was always going to take time for the 31-year-old to get his fitness and match sharpness back given how little he has played over the last two years.
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