Gareth Bale in handshake shocker

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Gareth Bale won't play for Wales because he's injured. In other news, planet Earth sits in a solar system, has its own moon. Gravity and stuff.

'If Bale had a chance to play he would play. It is not that mentally he is not able to play, he's not ready to play physically.' - Chris Coleman. 

Not sure where the suggestion has come from that Bale is 'on strike' or 'pulling a strop'. Unlike the propaganda suggests, he has played for us this pre-season. Easy to push aside the facts for the sake of a story arc.

The real hilarity comes from our olde friends AS and the esteemed Marca, 'stalking' Bale at training and then taking non-event social etiquettes out of context and placing them through the 'Bale to Madrid' filter-translator.

Shake the hand of a reporter = come get me plea to Perez.

This all resulted with statements suggesting that Gareth will speak to them later on as Levy has him wired up to time continuum explosive and if he says the 'M' word it triggers a worm hole that sends the player to Nottingham Forest for £3M circa November, 2009.

Ancelotti has told the world Bale is not in his plans. Thank you Carlo. Andre Villas-Boas to confirm that Messi and Ronaldo are not in his plans for the upcoming season. Not Carlo's fault of course. Loaded questions (stupid questions) are there to extract an innocent polite answer and exaggerate its importance for yet more traffic hitting nonsense.

Frequent followers of this blog will know that for a long time I stood strong and believed that Daniel Levy would not entertain any bid. One or two things that have since happened have suggested that isn't quite the scenario being played out beyond the very public domain of the newspapers, television and social media.

In fact, at one point - ignoring all the hyperbole - I couldn't see how the player wouldn't leave. I've covered this so many times now, I won't repeat my rationalising  (just read previous Bale blogs). However much like your stomach sinks when you're on a roller-coaster, enjoying/hating the frenzied ups and downs, I have this strange feeling in my gut that the very fuel used to drive this transfer saga to exhaust polluting speeds has backfired and left Madrid with a flat tire and no spare in the boot. Or maybe my gut is just rumbling due to the gluten free diet.

It's not over until the window shuts. Then it doesn't matter. There won't be a need for any official statements from club or player. All the media attention might as well be fantasy, it might as well be that conspiracy story that did the rounds the other week and that it's all just one massive white lie. A commercial stunt (as described by former Real Madrid director of football Arrigo Sacchi today). Because the player would be a Spurs player and nothing else will be relevant. Bale has even shown up on BT billboard adverts again. Got to be a conspiracy, right? RIGHT?

For me, the bigger story is our spending and our inclination to spend more.  Perhaps the logic here is the deal - the move of Bale to Madrid - isn't one that necessarily needs to happen this summer. Even if, say theoretically, the player wanted the move this summer. Spurs, known for their shrewdness, are hardly going to spend money they don't have or can't recoup. That is hardly within the character traits of how we do business. There is a contingency either way. And that, for us, is the only thing that matters.

This time next summer, Madrid will probably be back for Sandro. Or Vertonghen.

Be thankful the football season is now within touching distance and our distractions will be far more glorious than this saga.