Tottenham Hotspur take a break from Premier League action this midweek as the European competitions make their return.
Jose Mourinho’s side find themselves in the Europa League group stages after a gruelling qualification campaign which saw them head to Bulgaria and Macedonia early in the season.
And they’ve been dealt a pretty easy route into the knockout stages too as they’ve been paired with Royal Antwerp, Ludogorets and LASK Linz, the latter of whom they face at home on Thursday evening.
These matches will present a decent opportunity for Spurs’ fringe players to garner some valuable game time whilst at the same time, help the club contend for a major trophy – one that Mourinho has won before with Manchester United.
Perhaps it’ll be a good opportunity to get Gareth Bale back up to speed quickly as everyone in N17 will want to see that lethal-looking front three of Heung-min Son, Harry Kane and Bale sooner rather than later.
The 31-year-old superstar made his Spurs debut for the second time on Sunday evening, coming on a 73rd-minute substitute against West Ham, but he looked ever so rusty, as you might expect for someone that played just seven times for Real Madrid since January this year.
Tim Sherwood pointed out such issues to talkSPORT, he said:
“Gareth Bale needs to get fit; obviously when he came on, he had that one lung-busting run, his shot went past the post and when you saw his face after that, he was struggling to breathe – he needs to get back to fitness, he’s not ready to start at the moment.”
Per SofaScore, Bale recorded three accurate passes from six attempts, had one successful dribble and won two duels but crucially, he missed what might’ve been the match winner.
He ghosted past Angelo Ogbonna in injury time, rolling back the years in doing so, and it was the sort of self-created genius you’d expect from the tricky forward but he could only fire wide with Lukasz Fabianski rooted to the spot.
The attempt drew an xG of 0.29 and Bale was left without a fairytale start to life back in north London.
By comparison, two of Spurs’ three goals in the thrilling 3-3 draw were below 0.1 xG as per Understat, so it was certainly a golden opportunity missed.
His former teammate at the La Liga giants, Casemiro, still believes that on his day, Bale is one of the best three players in the world, speaking to Esporte Interativo, he said:
“He can spring a surprise at any time, and he’s already shown that. He’s a decisive player who scores goals in Champions League finals. We have to be honest and say that he’s not at his best, but when he is, he’s incredible and in the top three in the world. I have a lot of love for him, and that’s why I try to take care of him as much as I can.”
If Spurs are to bring that back out of him, then he needs to get that fitness back, therefore it would be wise for Mourinho to unleash the £22.5m-rated winger on LASK this Thursday and who knows, a goal or two could see his confidence return too.
It’ll surely be a win-win.
AND in other news, Spurs can land Jose Mourinho his new Matic next summer for £50m…