Tottenham News: Jose Mourinho opens up on Gareth Bale fitness

Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho has given an insight into Gareth Bale and his fitness and spoke about managing his minutes (h/t Football.london). Bale left for Real Madrid in the summer of 2013 after a 6-year stay at Spurs. After winning multiple trophies at Los Blancos, he was not getting a lot of minutes in the past couple of seasons.

That led him to return to Tottenham last summer on a one-year-long loan spell. Even at Tottenham, things started slowly for the Welshman. However, Bale has looked back to his best in recent weeks, scoring goals at a healthy rate.

Jose Mourinho spoke about his fitness issues and the thought process that goes behind substituting him.

“All the credit for him. We trust him, and his judgement of his own body and his own feelings. We never want him to arrive into high levels of fatigue, so minute 55/60, we are already in contact … eye contact … and the plan is to take him off when the first feelings of muscular fatigue arrive.”

This time management has produced fine results as Bales looks a good bit of his old self. The two goals against Palace meant that Bale has got 5 in the Premier League now, along with 3 in the Europa League.

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It bodes well for Spurs that Bale is playing so well and keeping up his fitness. It remains to be seen if this management style for Bale keeps working in the long run and how much he can contribute to the team’s cause in the remainder of the season.