Gareth Bale has come under increasing fire from both the press and Real Madrid supporters over the last few months following a return of just two goals and zero assists in his last 10 appearances, as per WhoScored.com.
His cause was not helped by his first-half miss and subsequent struggles in the Clasico defeat to Barcelona at the Camp Nou on Sunday.
AS conducted a survey in the wake of the match, in which 68.3 percent of the 8,532 respondents indicated that they would like to see Bale dropped from the starting XI going forward.
The story could have been very different had he taken advantage of the excellent chance that came his way right at the end of a first half in which both he and his team had performed well. Instead, he fired wide when the ball fell to him right in the centre of the area following an uncleared corner. That miss became the abiding memory of his first-half performance.
Barcelona’s full-backs, Dani Alves and Jordi Alba, were more conservative in their forward movements after the break. They defended their flanks more attentively and made it difficult for Madrid to make the sort of quick progress upfield that had been central to their attacks during the opening 45 minutes.
Bale went from being heavily involved during the first half to a mere spectator for much of the second. According to FourFourTwo's StatsZone, he completed just two forward passes after the break, just one of which was into the final third.
Unsurprisingly, in the aftermath it was the Welshman who received the majority of the criticism, despite the fact that both Barcelona goals came from defensive errors.
He became a symbol of both the wastefulness of the first half and the ineffectiveness of the second. AS pulled no punches in their post-match assessment, as noted by Madrid-based journalist Nicholas Rigg:
Marca (h/t Rigg in The Independent) were just as scathing. “Beyond his disallowed goal he did nothing,” they wrote. “In the second half he was invisible.”
It was a display that can perhaps be viewed as the culmination of what has been a very difficult period for the 25-year-old. His attacking output has slowed considerably compared to earlier in the campaign, while he has also had to face increasingly strong criticism from press and supporters alike.
Per The Guardian, he was booed by the Bernabeu crowd after failing to pass to Cristiano Ronaldo when both were through on goal against Espanyol in January. The decision of club president Florentino Perez to come out in support of the Welshman was met by an 11-point breakdown of his failures in Marca.
His best performance in recent times came in the win over Levante the week before the Clasico, in which he scored both goals. Even then, however, the majority of post-match coverage focused on Ronaldo’s petulant reactions to his strikes rather than Bale's return to the scoresheet.
The top-line statistics do show that Bale has made less of an offensive contribution this season than in his debut season at the Bernabeu.
Then, per data from WhoScored, he scored 21 goals and provided 16 assists in 2955 minutes of league and Champions League action. That worked out to a direct contribution to 1.13 goals for every 90 minutes of action.
Those figures have dropped significantly during the current campaign, in which he has scored 14 goals and provided six assists in 2754 minutes of action. He has made a direct contribution to 0.65 goals per 90 minutes—nearly a goal less for every two appearances.
Not only was his overall output more impressive last season, but he also made key contributions in big matches during the final stretch of the campaign.
He scored a memorable winner in the Copa del Rey final against Barcelona and notched the go-ahead goal in extra time of the Champions League final victory over Atletico Madrid in May.
And he will need to be similarly decisive in the final weeks of the current campaign if he is to somehow get the supporters and press back on side.
There are valid questions to be asked. Is the level of criticism justified? Has the reporting of the situation been completely objective? Has Bale simply been made the scapegoat for a side that has underperformed collectively since the turn of the year?
Regardless, the narrative now appears to have been set. He is not performing as expected, and it will take a string of special displays to convince anyone in Madrid otherwise.
Rightly or wrongly, Bale is therefore the Real Madrid player with the most to prove in final weeks of season.
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