Mauricio wary of Bale return

MAURICIO POCHETTINO insists there is no way Gareth Bale would have left Southampton under the club’s currrent owners.

Bale returns to the Saints this weekend with Tottenham – after picking up three Player of the Year awards in the last week.

It is a huge rise from his time on the South Coast where he made his debut aged just 16 before being sold to Spurs in 2007.

Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain were other notable departures but Pochettino believes the days of selling young stars are over.

The Argentine boss said: “With this current club’s ambition, dedication and vision for the future, it would be very hard for Gareth Bale to leave this club.

“Right now, our mentality is to keep our best players and we spoke that with Nicola [Cortese, executive chairman] from the first day.

“We want to keep our greatest talents but at the same time now we need more time in order to develop our greatest talents as it happened with Bale, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Walcott.

He added: “Now we need to be able to keep our greatest players, our greatest talents like Luke Shaw and James Ward-Prowse, in order for them to develop their football and become top footballers.

“It is a shame we don’t have these three players available for Southampton now but that is our project for the future.”

Pochettino admits Bale is a player who can strike fear into any opposition team.

He said: “He is a very decisive player — an amazing player because of his speed, strength and goalscoring abilities.

“He has shown that throughout the season this year so I rate him very highly.

“Our collective game needs to be very strong tomorrow.

“We can’t just focus on Gareth Bale — there are other players in that team that can raise their game.

“In a collective sense, we need to be very focused and mentally ready as we need to be in every single game that we play in the Premier League.

“We always need to be mentally focused as you never know.”

Football – The Sun

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