Mauricio Pochettino: Tottenham got 'so lucky' with Gareth Bale's Real Madrid move – they wanted to sell him sooner!

Record-breaker: Gareth Bale moved to Spain is a deal worth £86m five years ago
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Dan Kilpatrick @Dan_KP28 September 2018

Mauricio Pochettino believes Gareth Bale’s success was “so lucky” for Tottenham because they tried to sell the Welshman long before his world-record move to Real Madrid in 2013.

Spurs signed Bale for £5million from Southampton, then a cash-strapped Championship club, and sold him six years later for £86m. Under Pochettino’s predecessors, Harry Redknapp and Andre Villas-Boas, Bale transformed from a scrawny left-back into the powerful forward who has been instrumental in Real winning four of the last five Champions League titles.

But he came close to leaving for Nottingham Forest or Birmingham in 2010 and, far from regarding Bale as a shining example of youth development, Pochettino thinks Spurs got lucky.

“Remember with Bale, only after three years he started to be a success,” Pochettino said, ahead of tomorrow’s match at bottom-club Huddersfield. “But they believed they signed a left-back and today he’s the opposite!

“That was a bit lucky because after three years, when they told me everything that happened, they wanted to [get rid of him]. You know the history better than me! In football, sometimes it’s so lucky. That’s the truth.”

The Spurs manager was discussing the club’s policy — currently dormant but championed by chairman Daniel Levy — of signing promising Football League players. Aaron Lennon, Kyle Walker, Danny Rose and Dele Alli are among their other success stories.

Since signing Alli from MK Dons for £5m in 2015, Spurs have not followed up interest in lower League talents James Maddison, Ademola Lookman and Ben Wilmot, who are all now flourishing, and instead signed players with European experience.

Pochettino believes there are more Dele Allis out there but the Argentine clearly has his doubts about the policy, and says for every Bale there are a handful of players who have disappeared into obscurity.

“Maybe you’ve signed Bale but many others fail. It’s about percentages. If every season you sign 10 young players, it’s a gamble. Normally, in ten, five are good, one is excellent and four disappear,” said Pochettino, who could have pointed to Spurs’ signing of Chris Gunter around the same time as Bale.

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“Tottenham were always taking risks in history with signing players and many players were good and many not. You’re always going to remember Bale and [Luka] Modric, the good ones. But if we find the full list, many players failed here, including in the season before I signed.”

Pochettino was reminded of Alli’s humble roots when Spurs beat Watford at Stadium:MK, and he explained that young players could fulfil their potential only when circumstances were perfect.

“Sure there are talents in the Championship, League One and below, but then you need to get lucky,” he added. “You need some people like us to provide a platform. Dele is Dele because of Dele, but in the end the platform the club offered the player to develop needs to be right: right platform, right club, right person.

“The credit is for the player, but it’s not the same if Dele Alli arrived from Milton Keynes to another club. That’s why it’s so important the players have luck with interest from some clubs. Interest from Spurs is a massive thing because we have a very good platform to help youngsters improve.

“It’s not because the players are good or no good, it’s about how they adapt here. Not all good players can play here and maybe players that are not so good come here and then are so good. Everyone is different.”

Pochettino will be without Michel Vorm (knee), Christian Eriksen (adductor) and Serge Aurier (quad) at Huddersfield on Saturday, while captain Hugo Lloris faces a fitness test on his thigh injury.

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