Gareth Bale signs for Real Madrid in record deal

Real Madrid have broken the world transfer record to sign Tottenham forward Gareth Bale.

The Wales star has agreed a £300,000 per week, six-year deal after sealing an £85.3m (100m euros) move which eclipses the £80m Real paid for Manchester United for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009.

Well finally the deal has been done and we can now look forward to plenty of clubs scrambling around looking to do last minute deals today, particularly my club Arsenal.

Obviously as an Arsenal fan I’m glad to see our rivals sell their best player, but I think the amount of money involved is a joke how can anybody, with a straight face, say that Bale is worth more than Ronaldo?

When Madrid signed Ronaldo in 2009 he was world player of the year, and in his last three seasons at United they’d won the league three years in a row and won the champions league, with him being central to everything and he scored 90 goals to boot.

How can Bale who had a great season at Tottenham last season where he scored 26 goals and helped them finish 5^th be worth more? It’s all wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Another two deals involving Tottenham highlights just how ridiculous player valuations are and how stupid the transfer market has become.

Spurs signed Soldado from Valencia, at 28 he is in the prime of his career, in his last four seasons in Spain he scored over 100 goals, he’s proven himself in the Champions League, and he’s lead the line for the Spanish national team, and Spurs paid £26m for him. Great piece of business and as an Arsenal fan I could only look on with envy as he was the kind of player we need, and still do.

Yet Spurs then go on to sign Lamela, who very few people were aware of, who had his breakthrough season last year scoring 15 times for Roma, half as many as Soldado scored for Valencia, and at 21 isn’t the finished article and has plenty of room for improvement, yet Spurs paid £30m for him, how can that be?

As an Arsenal fan I do wish we’d be more pro-active in the transfer market and spend some of the cash we’ve been stockpiling for the last few years, but when you hear about the ridiculous price tags clubs put on their average players, let alone star names, I can understand why Wenger is reluctant to buy.

Although I must admit he’s not doing anybody any favours by cramming all his deals through at the last minute.