Andre Villas-Boas has assured Tottenham fans that Gareth Bale will still be at White Hart Lane next season, whether the North London side qualify for the Champions League or not.
The Tottenham manager said “The information that I have from the club, which was mistakenly written about last week, is that the player is here to remain, independent of the objectives of Champions League qualification being achieved or not.
“I would be extremely surprised (if he left).
[quote] “Whatever price tag the player has doesn’t matter to us because he’s our player.” [/quote]
“In football anything can happen. It’s impossible to predict, but this is the assurance I have had from the club.”
Villas-Boas’ comments come after the Tottenham midfielder was named as the footballer of the year by the Football Writers Association, days after winning the PFA’s player and young player of the year awards.
The Welsh midfielder picked up 53% of the votes to be crowned as the Football Writers Association footballer of the year, just ahead of Robin Van Persie who picked up 43% of votes. Juan Mata came third, while Luis Suarez who is currently serving a 10 match ban for biting Branislav Ivanovic came fourth.
Gareth Bale has been on blistering form for Tottenham this season and it is no surprise that Andre Villas-Boas wants to keep his star player at White Hart Lane next season.
He has notched 19 Premier League goals this season at a rate of a goal every 135 minutes, which has helped keep Tottenham in the race for a Champions League spot.
He is only one of three players to have 100+ shots this season with Robin Van Persie and Luis Suarez and has hit the target with 54% of his shots this season, which is 4% better than Luis Suarez but 1% less that Robin Van Persie.
Bale has converted 58% of the 12 clear cut chances that his team-mates have created for him this season, which is better than both Suarez (53%) and Van Persie (43%).
As well as scoring 32% of Tottenham’s goals, Bale has also created more chances than any other Spurs player this season (68) and is in the top 10 chance creators in the Premier League.
Bale has created a chance for Tottenham every 38 minutes, while he has created 10 clear cut chances, which is a clear cut chance every 256 minutes this season.
The former Southampton player also has 4 assists and has been accurate with 23% of his 243 crosses for Tottenham this season.
[box_light]All of the stats from this article have been taken from the Opta Stats Centre at EPLIndex.com – Subscribe Now (Includes author privileges!) Check out our new Top Stats feature on the Stats Centre which allows you to compare all players in the league & read about new additions to the stats centre.[/box_light]
