LONDON, England (AFP) — Tottenham Hotspur manager Andre Villas-Boas appeared resigned yesterday to seeing star forward Gareth Bale leave for Real Madrid for a proposed world record transfer fee.
But Villas-Boas said Spurs would still consider fining Bale after the Wales forward did not turn up at the north London club’s training ground on either Tuesday or yesterday.“He is involved in a big transfer move to Real Madrid and in the end if it happens, we wish him all the best, but the fact that he hasn’t turned up is not the correct behaviour…,” Villas-Boas said at a news conference.“That is the position they chose to take and it’s up to the club to decide if it’s a fineable offence,” the Portuguese added.Villas-Boas confirmed Bale was on the brink of joining Spanish giants Real.“It could happen very, very soon,” he said.Villas-Boas added he did not expect to see Bale at Tottenham’s training ground again.“Will he be in tomorrow? I don’t know. I’m not really in control of the situation. I’ve left it up to the club to decide what they want to do,” the manager said.“It’s up to Gareth (whether he wants to come back again). He has a good relationship with everybody and he has saluted the players the other day, myself included.”Real manager Carlo Ancelotti angered Tottenham by speaking of Bale as though he’d already joined the Spanish club, while erecting a stage at the Santiago Bernabeu for the presentation of the Welshman as one of their players.“I cannot comment on actions that another club has taken, I showed my disappointment before, and I think Carlo did extremely well because he didn’t speak about Gareth again after the first time,” Villas-Boas said.“Whether it’s responsible or irresponsible, I don’t care.”Tottenham have been slinked with Erik Lamela, Christian Eriksen and Vlad Chiriches over the last week.“I have told you that we will continue re-strengthening the squad so we are looking at different positions to make us stronger. Not only those players, others as well,” Villas-Boas said.“In the next couple of days we will have further news and I think we will see further additions at Tottenham.”Villas-Boas said he had asked about the possibility of signing Chelsea midfielder Juan Mata, but said he was never very hopeful the Blues would let a player leave for their London rivals.“First, Chelsea wouldn’t sell to Tottenham in any way or form, as they think that we are title contenders,” said Villas-Boas, who saw main target Willian choose Chelsea over Spurs last week.“Mata is a great, great player — player of the season last season — very, very important player for Chelsea.“They’re just not going to strengthen another team that, in their opinion, are rivals for the title.”Meanwhile, Villas-Boas was looking forward to the rest of the season where they’ve won their first two games following a £60 million pre-season spending spree.“We have a very, very strong team the same. If this transfer happens, it will give the opportunity to step up their game, step up the responsibility, and I think we have seen that in the last couple of games,” Villas-Boas said.“There hasn’t been any disruption. We’ve been working well and the team is training very, very well.”Earlier on Wednesday, Bale was included in the Wales squad for next month’s World Cup qualifiers against Macedonia and Serbia.Gareth Bale (left) in action for Tottenmham Hotspurs in the English Premier League last season where he was adjudged to be the best player of the league by his fellow players and journalists.View the original article here
Bale out
