These are dangerous days for Gareth Bale, whose place in the Real Madrid starting line-up is under serious threat for the first time since his record move to the Bernabeu 18 months ago.
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Aside from a badly mis-hit cross which somehow ended up hitting the post, the Welshman was virtually anonymous in his team’s damaging 1-0 defeat against Atletico Bilbao on Saturday night, which resulted in them losing top spot to Barcelona for the first time since early November with their rivals thrashing Rayo Vallecano 6-1 yesterday.
And it was by no means the first time that Bale has struggled to make an impact during Los Blancos’ recent dip in form.
The former Tottenham star has failed to score or register an assist in any of Madrid’s last seven outings. So far in 2015, he has scored only three goals: a penalty, a free-kick and a header which is clearly not good enough.
More worryingly, not only is he failing to put up the numbers to justify his place in the team, he rarely even looks like doing so and has been a non-factor in many of his team’s outings over the last couple of months.
The fortunate thing for Bale is that James Rodriguez is currently injured, taking away the most obvious option as his replacement on the right-hand side of attack.
However, there is another strong natural candidate to replace Bale, and Jese Rodriguez must be seriously wondering how much worse things will have to get for him to be given a chance in the starting line-up.
The 22-year-old, now fully fit after a long term knee injury, made as much impact during 20 minutes from the substitutes’ bench against in Bilbao on Saturday than Bale managed over the full 90, and the Welshman’s continued inclusion is looking increasingly difficult to justify.
Rather than his current level of performance, the only factors keeping Bale in the team at the moment are the fact that he cost so much money and memories of some of his highlights in the Madrid shirt last season.
In particular, his sensational goal to win the Copa del Rey final against Barcelona serves as a constant reminder of the brilliance he is capable of producing. But that magical moment was nearly a year ago and, even by the fickle standards of football fans, Real Madrid supporters possess notoriously short memories.
They will not tolerate mediocrity from Bale for much longer.
Neither will manager Carlo Ancelotti, even though he has regularly stated that his front three of Bale, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo are more or less guaranteed starting places if they are fit.
The Italian coach must now be reviewing that policy, and his comments in the aftermath of the defeat on Saturday made it clear that he recognises his team’s attacking play has not been up to scratch.
Ronaldo, even though he has been well below his best, will not lose his place – dropping him would be too bold a move for any manager, never mind the conservative Ancelotti. And Benzema is also likely to stay in, even if only because the lightweight Javier Hernandez is the only option to replace him.
Bale, therefore, is by far the most likely victim if Ancelotti decides to shake things up by dropping one of his ‘BBC’ front line. And on current form, he could have no complaints.
