I'm not angry at Bale at all, more bothered by the press who continue to talk like the deal to sell Bale to Madrid was completely our decision, as if there was no pressure from the player, his representatives or Madrid. Much like I'm fed up with the constant ostracisement/flop nature of Lamela according to all journalists up until this week.
Here is the whole sentence though from the article; “It’s nice now to sit back and just watch the transfers,” he told the Daily Mail. “When you are settled somewhere, you can enjoy it - but it was the complete opposite 12 months ago. I was still at home waiting to come here."
Firstly, he isn't talking about his move from Southampton to Spurs because he talks specifically about his situation 12 months ago. Secondly, I'll admit I misquoted by saying "sitting at home" instead of "still at home waiting". A small difference but fine a misquote on my part. Cast your mind back 12 months ago though. Bale didn't train with the team once the Madrid stories started cropping up because of a foot injury, one that cleared up quite quickly after the deal. He distanced himself from Spurs over the duration of that summer and was in limbo because he wanted his move to Madrid. He kept himself out of the media to avoid answering any questions about whether he wanted to stay or go.
Bale, his agent and Real all created a situation whereby they made it clear that he wanted to leave Spurs. Perez used that in order to try to pry him away from us for less than we eventually got. Bale wasn't dragged off by Madrid kicking and screaming and AVB certainly wasn't happy with the sale, because Bale was central to his plans. Bale wanted to go to Madrid. He was in limbo because he wanted to go but didn't know if it would happen. Much like Luka's head wasn't in the right place, it's all a way of exerting some pressure on the club to do business.
I'll reiterate though, that my problem is with commentators/journalists/pundits who have been saying for the last year how we shouldn't have sold Bale. They talk as if there was never any pressure on us to sell, as if Bale was happy to stay at Spurs and we cashed in because Levy was greedy, when all along we were in an untenable position with a player who didn't want to be at the club.
All fair points, but you sound like you're still possessed of the belief that the media are just misinformed and are willing to change their viewpoints should alternate information be presented to them. Far, far from it. The media chaps who write up the guff about Levy caving in and taking the cash while furiously pushing Bale out of the exit door know full well that Bale wanted to move just as much as we wanted to hold on to him, and they know that Madrid used every dirty trick in the book to firstly prise him away from us and secondly to then lower the fee we wanted.
It doesn't matter. Writing a story about how the pecking order of football won out yet again in a transfer and how Real used their indisputed appeal to prise away a player just as surely as we used ours to prise away the likes of Paulinho, Capoue and Chiriches in the same window....well, that would just strip the romance right out of it. Far easier to pen some guff about Levy's legendary greed pushing a proud British player kicking and screaming to a foreign land, away from his home in these sceptered isles. And that malicious angle writes itself: the writers were them able to jubilantly write the triumphant fairytale ending to that story without irony. Bale won the Champions League, the classic British boy done good, while greedy Levy was left to bitterly curse his broken empire as all his expensive signings ended the season as irredeemable failures and write-offs. Bish, bash, bosh, classic football storyline, told in the most romantic way possible.
And in the end, that story sells. It also endures, judging by the jibes thrown at us by everyone from Brendan Rodgers to Henry Winter about how Liverpool would never 'do a Spurs' with the Suarez money. However, at the close, it doesn't matter. Regardless of what the media think, I'd say that ultimately everyone involved in that transfer came out of it fairly happy, a rare occurrence in football. Bale got his dream move, Perez got his star player, Real got La Decima at last, and we here at Tottenham Hotspur....well, we got to see the lad we'd nurtured and who'd given us so many good memories finally show his stuff and live his dreams at the very top of the world game. And, ultimately, we ended up with the squad full of talent that we'd thought we were getting last year, only one season late.
So **** what the media think, and what the pundits say. We know what happened that summer, and in the end, no one seems to have come out of it that badly.