It’s beyond all doubt now that the Gareth Bale experiment has backfired on Tottenham Hotspur.
For all of the talk about bringing the prodigal son back home, the Welshman has done nothing to inspire since his return.
Injuries have played a part, just as they did at Real Madrid, and that has to be partly why Los Blancos were so keen to offload him for a season in north London.
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His relationship with Jose Mourinho has also appeared frosty at best, and after Bale’s latest Instagram post, it might be completely broken.
The Portuguese doesn’t suffer fools gladly as he’s shown many times in the past, and the winger’s recent actions haven’t gone down well.
“Well I think it’s better for me to say. So we played against West Bromwich on the Sunday and he didn’t play,” the Daily Mirror quote Mourinho as saying after Spurs’ FA Cup elimination at the hands of Everton, a match that Bale wasn’t involved in.
“On Monday I was a little bit surprised by him wanting to have a scan because he was not comfortable with some muscular area.
“So he didn’t train on Monday and then on Tuesday he trained with the team but I was informed that his desire would be to work with the sports science for a couple of days to strengthen that area where he’s not feeling comfortable.
“That’s the reason why he’s not here.”
Whilst the first-team squad were away for that match, Bale decided to post a ‘Good session today’ message on his Instagram channel.
View this post on Instagram
The inference seems clear enough, and Mourinho is said to be seething by what he perceives to be Bale blaming the manager for his absence.
This isn’t going to end well.