Gareth Bale was fit to join up with Wales, claims Spurs boss Harry Redknapp

11 April 2012

Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp insists his Welsh winger Gareth Bale was fit to play when he was released for international duty at the weekend.

Bale has been ruled out of his country's Euro 2012 qualifier against England tomorrow with a hamstring problem which Wales manager Gary Speed claims was present when he arrived for training.

However, Redknapp has rejected that version of events and insists the 21-year-old was fit for action when he linked up with Wales.

He told the Daily Mail: "I wouldn't have let him go if he had an injury.

"Gareth played for 90 minutes against West Ham on Saturday and they tell me the figures from that game show he covered more ground than he's ever done before.

"There was no sign of a hamstring injury. He's not come in after the game and said his hamstrings were tight.

"When he left here on Saturday, off he went and he certainly wasn't injured. Now he's got a hamstring (injury). He must've done it with Wales. I'm not blaming anyone. It's no one's fault."

Speed said yesterday: "Gareth reported from Spurs with stiffness. We left him out of training Sunday and Monday just to assess him and put him through the recovery process.

"He did the warm-up Tuesday morning and he still felt a bit of tightness in his hamstring, so we took him off.

"He didn't train Wednesday so we took him for a scan. The results came back that he has an injury there. I think you can tell on scans now, with the fluid and the blood that it was an injury from last week."

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