It's official: Gareth Bale is once again a Tottenham Hotspur player after the Welsh superstar completed a medical and sealed a season-long loan deal from Real Madrid.
It is reported that Spurs are paying around £20 million in loan fees and wages for the player who left the club for a then world-record £85.3 million in 2013. Not that fans will care even a tiny bit about the price tag.
He arrives alongside former Real teammate Sergio Reguilon, the Spanish left-back who's signing on a permanent deal. But it's Bale - who signed for Tottenham as a left-back but long ago moved on from that position - who will grab the headlines.
Even if there wasn't the emotional pull of a player who claimed two PFA Players' Player of the Year awards and scored so many incredible goals in north London returning a hero, Bale still looks an excellent signing.
Advert
Jose Mourinho played his usual mind games when asked about the player's possible move. But he has long been an admirer and Bale - technically good, a superb athlete and capable of scoring goals on the highest stage - looks a perfect fit for the Portuguese boss.
Despite his absence from the Real first team for much of last season, Bale's fitness record has also been good in the last couple of years as he's avoided the nagging injuries that once hampered him.
It's also a win for Daniel Levy, the Spurs chairman who has been praised for overseeing a rise in Tottenham's status but has also angered fans by his apparent reluctance to invest in players. There can certainly be no complaints in the coup of bringing Bale back to London.
Advert
Yet there are also questions to answer. We've seen so little of Bale recently, at club level at least, that it's difficult to know exactly what the the 31-year-old has left or where precisely he will fit into the current Spurs set-up.
But, understandably, those will not be questions that bother fans of the Lilywhites right now.
As far as they're concerned, a club hero - and a proven winner with four Champions League medals in his luggage - has come back to the team where he made his name. A club whose fortunes he has always followed with interest from Madrid.
Advert
Now he gets to step onto the turf at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and try to improved those fortunes himself. Time to start hastily filming a second season of 'All or Nothing', anyone?
Imagery: PA Images
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Football News, Tottenham Hotspur, Football, Premier League, gareth bale, Transfer news
