Bale Out

It's all coming fast and furious today.

With Spurs signing Erik Lamela and Romanian center back Chiriches, it might be lost on you that Bale just sold for £80m plus incentives.

 Let me state that again... £80m.

Well, we all know that this won't be paid all up front. Hell, Real still owe Spurs for Luka Modric ffs...

What is not lost is that Spurs have managed to pull a complete coup. Cristiano Ronaldo sold to Real for £80m in 2009. Now Real has gone and avoided breaking that record by tossing in player incentive clauses for Spurs that would conceivably avoid upsetting the delicate ego of C. Ronaldo.. I'm quite sure that Merc7 will not be happy about having that overpaid title usurped, but as a Spurs fan, I gotta say, Levy outdid himself. No one was going to pay remotely that price, but the underlying fact remains, one player cannot a team make.

With £80 million in hand, Spurs can have remade their entire lineup. They've already offloaded some dead weight in Gallas (too old) and Bentley (crap) in the offseason on outright releases. They've sold Huddlestone and they have a completely rebuild mid. With their two new signings come through, you won't need last year's Player of the Year to score goals. Spurs have the poor mans Bale in Chadli and if the can convince Lennon to not be so mercurial, they have the other wing covered. French NT goalkeeper Lloris at the back... Really, they could shore up a new back line and still have about £15mil left from the deal to go buy themselves a happy meal. That's a nearly complete rebuild of a team that finishes in the top 5 consistently.

But let's look at this realistically from Levy's point of view.  Sure, Bale is a great player.  Hell, just 4 short seasons ago, Bale was considered a blight on the team by many fans as whenever he was in the starting lineup, they failed to win.  Funny how time changes all things.  Also consider this, when do you usually prices for marginal players heavily inflated?  Right after you sell someone for an obscene amount.  If anything, Levy has gone about this the right way.  Bring in the replacements and players you want first, then sell the player that will pay for all those improvements.  Probably saved Spurs nearly £40mil in price inflation alone.

With just the purchases this offseason alone, Spurs have passed the £110mil mark spent all by themselves (about 1/5 of the total transfer price of all moves this summer by all English teams according to Sky Sports). So between the Huddlestone, Parker and Dempsey sales, and the Bale bomb, I'd say Spurs improved and made money...  Tough to see that happen.

Is it sad to see Bale go? Sure. But for that price, "see ya, and don't call us, we'll call you" seems pretty apt to say.

Photo: sportzwiki