John Toshack Slams Gareth Bale for Real Madrid Saga: 'It Saddens and Sickens Me'

Former Wales and Real Madrid manager John Toshack has hit out at Gareth Bale after his proposed move to Chinese Super League side Jiangsu Suning fell through. 

Bale was reportedly set to earn £1 million a week in China, a significant increase on the £600,000 he earns in Madrid, but his agent Jonathan Barnett said Real "changed their minds" about letting him move there, per ESPN FC's Dermot Corrigan.

Toshack suggested to BBC Radio 5 Live (h/t the Mirror's Darren Lewis) Bale should be willing to take a pay cut to move elsewhere:

"Terrible to have to take a pay cut to £150,000 a week—how can they manage with that?!

"He's got a family and a couple of children, how can you manage?! It saddens me—sickens and saddens me the way that this has gone.

"And nothing comes out from Gareth. Nothing. Only his agent, this, that—sad, sad for the football I know and loved, it saddens and sickens me."

The 70-year-old called on Bale to speak out himself rather than through Barnett and said criticism of the Welshman is "justified."

Real handed the winger a six-year deal in 2016, and he still has three years of that contract remaining.

However, he has little relationship with manager Zinedine Zidane, who returned to the dugout in March after stepping down at the end of the 2017-18 season.

The Frenchman wants Bale to move on this summer, but outside of China few clubs can match his wages at the Santiago Bernabeu.

Sachin Nakrani of the Guardian echoed Toshack's thoughts on the matter:

Football writer Andrew Gaffney placed the responsibility with the club for handing him such a contract, though:

Toshack also criticised Bale's grasp of Spanish:

"Come out Gareth, do an interview, speak yourself. You've been there for six or seven years now—you don't speak the language. That's an insult to the people you are working for.

"You try and you learn the language, and if you make mistakes early on then people forgive you. But to have somebody else coming out and speaking for you, no, no, no.

"And even if you can say good morning and good afternoon, 1-0, 2-0, that was a corner, should have had a free-kick, little things like that will endear you to the people. Gareth's situation—nothing. It's not gone down well at all here in Spain, and it saddens me."

Last season, Marcelo discussed his inability to converse with Bale in Spanish:

Bale's lack of fluency with the language will have made settling in Madrid more difficult, though it hasn't stopped him from contributing to a great deal of success during his time there, as BBC 5 Live demonstrated:

Los Blancos have won the UEFA Champions League—the honour they covet most—four times in Bale's six years at the club, and he scored in two of the finals.

He also bagged the winning goal against Barcelona in the 2014 Copa del Rey final.

Given the length of time remaining on his contract with the club, he could still offer an enormous amount to the team if he's called upon.

There's also enough time left that he might outlast Zidane at the club, should the coach fail to turn things around after the team endured a calamitous season in the last campaign that saw them finish third in La Liga and knocked out of the Champions League before the quarter-finals.