Bale in 'painting-by-numbers' transfer gossip
Friday, May 4, 2012 at 4:45 PM | by Daniel Whiteway 
If you had to pick a club to link with a big name player for a huge transfer fee you would probably opt for Manchester City in the current climate. Then, if you were to pick a big name player to link to that club, Gareth Bale, for obvious reasons, would be a good choice.
And so we come to a story in the Daily Mirror today that speculates just that; Manchester City putting in a £40m cash+ player(s) deal for Gareth Bale in the summer in something of a ‘painting’by-numbers’ piece of transfer gossip.
The story reports that City will offer Bale a deal worth more than £30m over a five-year deal, effectively tripling his wages in a deal that City’s Arab owners have given the green light.
The nature of what will be going in the opposite direction to Bale, toward White Hart Lane has not been decided yet (so the story claims) with a suggestion that the deal will be worth somewhere in the region of £40m but not all in cash.
The speculation is that Emmanuel Adebayor will make his current loan deal permanent as part of the deal but his high wages are a factor for Spurs whilst if the White Hart Lane club play hardball, City are also reportedly prepared to load Nigel de Jong or Adam Johnson onto the trailer full of cash and/or Adebayor to attempt to sway Spurs. They may even be able to keep the trailer too.
Bale has expressed doubts about his future should Spurs fail to qualify for the Champions League which has prompted speculation of a move to Barcelona (probably another club you’d place high on the list of ‘clubs conceivably involved in big transfer talk). In which case, expect a “Bale to Real Madrid” story soon enough.
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