North London club tell any potential suitors for Gareth Bale that they will need to stump up a whopping £70m if they wish to land the Welsh winger this summer.
SOURCE: Daily Star Sunday
Tottenham Hotspur vs Manchester United battles are highly familiar these days – both on and off the field. Matches between the sides have grown increasingly more competitive in recent years, whilst transfer sagas between the two clubs have also captivated – most famously in the summer of 2008 when the Red Devils came knocking on Spurs chairman Daniel Levy’s door to inquire about the possibility to signing front man Dimitar Berbatov.
In the end, Levy played hard ball with the executives from Old Trafford, driving the asking price up and up before in the end United ended up shelling out a club-record £30 million on the mercurial Bulgaria international attacker, which at the time seemed just a little over the top, but in the intervening years has appeared to be more like the deal of the century.
So it can come as absolutely no surprise to either those of a red persuasion or to any neutral observers following this transfer saga to see Levy already adopting the same negotiating tactics this time around as well.
The North London club know that they have a crown jewel on their hands which the whole of the Continent would welcome into their teams with open arms and were Tottenham not to qualify for next season’s Champions League, then that is when Levy and Co need to start worrying, as surely they would find it near on impossible to keep hold of the speedy playmaker were that scenario to materialise.
Then, and only then, will Levy start to sit down with the likes of United, and no doubt Real Madrid and FC Barcelona too, to hammer out any potential deals, with the figure of £70m a more than realistic asking price at this current moment in time given the 21-goal winger’s season to date at White Hart Lane.
And of course for United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, there is always the possibility of turning his attentions towards another speedy winger cum forward by the name of Cristiano Ronaldo were his advances towards Bale be spurned by Tottenham, although such a move would naturally set United back a bit more than £70m.
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