Gareth Bale wants to play through the middle, behind a No. 9 in order to return to his indomitable best according to his agent Jonathan Barnett. Am I the only one who thinks this is really weird?

Of all the qualities of a Bale, his pace is probably his greatest asset. How useful does he think that would be playing “in the hole”. The no. 10 role is usually reserved for players with great creative and technical qualities, who are able to think calmly and carefully on the ball, and quickly pick out clever passes regularly. Players of the ilk of Silva, Mata, Coutinho, James and Isco. Two of whom are already at Madrid. Players like Bale are meant for running up and down the wings or across the front line terrorising defences with speed and power also wrecking havoc by delivering quality crosses or scoring goals.

If Bale is deployed behind the striker, he takes away the space he usually craves, to run at defenders. What made him exciting to watch would be gone. Personally I think in order for Bale to return to his best, Ronaldo will have to take a much more reserved role, which is impossible given his insatiable love for kicking the ball into the net. Bale normally, would love to take a long shot instead of trying to find Ronaldo. Unfortunately that could cause a fight, and a couple of boos from the Bernabeau crowd, especially if he doesn’t score. Ronaldo gets all of his joy from scoring goals, he’s not like Messi who cool also be proud of dropping deep, taking on 5 or 6 opponents and then giving a pitch of a pass for Neymar or Suarez to feed on, and then gets most of the praise.

So i think, Ronaldo would have to leave Madrid for Bale to return to his very best. Cr7 is already 30, he doesn’t have much time left at the top of his game. Gareth needs to have patience and try his best to support him for now, but try as much as possible to make himself really important to the team, if he wants to take up the mantle of top dog in the near future. If Bale does get his wish of playing behind a striker, he might not be that succesful, and that would mean taking the position of far better players in that role, James and Isco. This would slow down their development, which is both bad for Madrid itself and for the fans. I doubt Bale will get his wish though. Benitez hasn’t spent much time at Madrid he already has a lot of player management issues on his hands, good luck Rafa.