José Mourinho has criticised Gareth Bale for breaking ranks to give a “totally wrong” impression about his fitness. The Tottenham winger posted to Instagram on Tuesday that he had enjoyed a “good session” on the training ground pitches earlier in the day, adding a bicep curl emoji for emphasis.
In Mourinho’s opinion, Bale made it seem as if he was ready to play at Everton in the FA Cup tie on Wednesday night when, in fact, he had told the manager he was not feeling 100% and excused himself from travelling.
Mourinho then felt compelled to clarify the situation after the 5-4 defeat, giving details he had not wanted to make public. He said Bale had requested a scan on an unspecified problem on Monday and, after training on Tuesday, had still felt uncomfortable, even though the scan had not shown an injury. Bale remains a doubt for Saturday’s Premier League visit to Manchester City.
“I have to admit that his post created something that needed to be addressed because there was a contradiction between the post and the reality,” Mourinho said. “Since the beginning of the season, in relation to everything, I tried to be very, very private and tried to keep everything indoors but I’ve felt that I needed to address the situation.
“Probably the post was not even his responsibility, I don’t know … but the post was: ‘Training session great,’ so I’m ready and it was totally wrong. When I was questioned, I had to say the reality of the things which I [will now] repeat for the last time and I hope there are no more questions about it because the situation was exactly the way I told [it].
“He was not feeling good, he asked for a scan, he had the scan, the scan did not show an injury but his feelings were still there and coaches and sports science and medical people … we can never go against those feelings because a player’s feelings are much more important than all of us so he was not ready for the game. It’s as simple as that. If he’s ready for tomorrow, he’s selected for tomorrow.”
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