Richard Keys ‘nearly crashes car’ after Redknapp’s Gareth Bale claim

Gareth Bale announces retirement from professional football

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Richard Keys has called out Harry Redknapp after the former Tottenham boss claimed he never came close to selling or loaning Gareth Bale during his time in charge. Keys claims he has heard a different story regarding the Welshman, who retired from football this week.

Bale officially announced he had hung up his boots on Monday. It brought to an end a glittering 16-year career in the professional game.

His most successful period as a player came at Real Madrid, where he won five Champions Leagues and three La Liga titles among other major honours. But he will be fondly remembered by Spurs fans as one of their greatest-ever players.

Bale’s first spell in north London didn’t start well and it became an unwanted statistic that Spurs never won when he featured in a match. There were rumours of a potential loan to the Championship, including during the 2008/09 season when Redknapp took over midway through.

But speaking to talkSPORT on Tuesday, Redknapp insisted there was never any chance Bale would leave, even on loan. He said: “No, never, ever was he going to leave. Honestly never. I’ve heard that story.

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“Someone might have rung up and said ‘can we loan him?’ or something and then when he becomes a superstar, whoever the manager was, might tell people ‘I nearly loaned him once’. They never nearly loaned him because Tottenham were never, ever going to let him go.”

BeIN SPORTS presenter Keys was listening at the time. He claimed he nearly crashed his car and that Redknapp was speaking “nonsense”.

Keys tweeted: “It’s dangerous on the roads today especially if you’re listening to @talkSPORT I just heard ‘Arry claim he never tried to loan or sell Gareth Bale out of Spurs. I nearly crashed. Ask Damien Comoli about that – as I once did on TalkSPORT. Why do people listen to ‘Arry’s nonsense?”

Redknapp rarely tweets from his Twitter account and is yet to respond to Keys. The 75-year-old continued to pay tribute to Bale’s career and again reiterated he never considered letting him leave.

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Redknapp continued: “The profile of Gareth was everything that Daniel [Levy] wanted. He was a young player, he bought him as a young player at Southampton, and everybody knew he had a great future.

“I first came across him at Southampton as a youth team player and even then you looked at him and thought ‘my god this kid has got everything’. The physique of him, the way he can run, the way he can sprint, the way he can shoot, he can head it.

“He could do absolutely everything, it was so natural and so easy for him. There was no way we were ever going to let him go, not a chance.

“I moved him from left wing to left-back at the time but as I said before, he would have been the best left-back in the world if he’d have stayed there and played there. He was just so natural.”

But it appears Keys is not the only person who would disagree with Redknapp. In 2013, Alex McLeish claimed he was close to signing Bale on loan four years earlier when he was manager at Birmingham.

McLeish claimed Redknapp was prepared to loan Bale but for injuries in the Spurs squad to prevent a deal. The Scot said: “Gareth wasn’t in the Spurs side at the time and Harry Redknapp wasn’t able to get him a game for whatever reason.

“We heard a rumour that Harry might let him out. So I chanced my arm early on in the week, giving Harry a ring and asking whether we could take Gareth on loan.

“He said he would get back to me and duly did 24 hours before Spurs were involved in a UEFA Cup tie, if my memory serves. He said, ‘Alex, I’ve got no problem with him coming out to get games but I just can’t let him out because we’ve got a few injuries’.

“I knew it was a long shot as Spurs had paid Southampton £5m for him. But there are a few moments when you wonder what might have been.”

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