Alan McInally has admitted that he isn’t fully convinced that Gareth Bale is back to his scintillating best as a Tottenham Hotspur player.
It has taken the best part of six months but Bale is finally showing the sort of form that made Spurs re-sign him on a season-long loan from Real Madrid.
The 31-year-old has hit a brilliant run of form in recent weeks and scored two goals in the Premier League win over Burnley last weekend.
In doing so, the Welshman has provoked theories that he has recaptured the magic which made him such an electric player for the Lilywhites once upon a time, prior to joining the Spanish giants for a world-record fee in 2013.
But it’s worth bearing in mind that this upturn in fortunes has come on the back of heroics against Wolfsberger and the Clarets, along with a promising cameo in a defeat by West Ham, and McInally has told Football Index that it might be too early to herald Bale’s return.
He said: “I’m like ‘At last Gareth, seriously mate, seriously we have been waiting for this, the reason you came back to Spurs and everybody was excited’. We haven’t seen anything. And all of a sudden, over the last couple of weeks just maybe [we are seeing the best of Bale]. But, I’m still like the jury is out a bit.
“Let’s just see if he does it next week and the following week and the following week, and then I’ll say to you Spurs should try and get him permanently.”
This is a sensible stance from McInally, it has to be said.
Tottenham fans will want nothing more than to believe Bale is going to rip Premier League and Europa League defences to shreds from here on out, but the truth is that it has been a very disappointing return to English football so far, on the whole, and more time is needed to really gauge whether he’s well and truly back.
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