good news

Gareth Bale is out of Wales' Euro 2012 qualifier against England at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday after suffering a hamstring injury.

The Football Association of Wales says in a statement the injury was suffered before Bale joined the Wales squad.

The 21-year-old Tottenham Hotspur winger did not train on Wednesday.

"He did the warm up on Tuesday, we took him off and he went for a scan on Wednesday and he had an injury there," said manager Gary Speed.

"It was an injury from last week and we do our utmost here to make sure we look after the players. Gareth is the most important person in this scenario."

The FAW released a statement on Thursday explained the problem with Bale's injury.

It said: "After playing 90 minutes on Saturday he felt some muscle tightness. Initially, this was expected to be muscle soreness after playing his first game.

"On joining up with the Welsh squad he was kept off his feet in training for two days to recover.

"As he still felt tight in the warm-up on Tuesday, Gareth was pulled out of the session.

"He did not train at all on Wednesday and was sent for a scan.

"The scan revealed that Gareth Bale picked up his injury last week."

Despite Bale being highlighted as one of the key players in Wales bid to beat England in Cardiff, Speed stressed that he is more interested in the long term rather than the short term benefits of risking him on Saturday.

"The next three and a half years are more important than the next three and a half days," he added.

"We want to be successful and the best way we can be successful is to get our players out on the pitch in the best shape they can be."

Bale has only recently returned to action for Spurs after a six-week lay-off with a back injury.

His absence is a major blow to boss Gary Speed's preparations but a boost to England, who see Bale as one of their main threats.

"Gareth is top class and he can really hurt you - it's a shame at times he is not English," said England striker and Tottenham team-mate Peter Crouch.

Speed had hoped he could unleash "match winners" Bale and Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey on Fabio Capello's side.

2 weeks rest for bale ready for madrid

Dunno Lought, maybe he could have done with a bit of game time before the Madrid match . . . .

I'm sort of with lought on this , i think against England Bale would want to prove a point, the welsh & english don't really like eachother although my neighbour is welsh and he is a tarrific fella, but we all know games like these the tackles fly in and tempers flare , so maybe a blessing in desguise , Real won't know whats hit erm hopefully

yep he would get kicked loads of times for england.

30minutes aganst wigan ready for madrid

LOBO wrote:I'm sort of with lought on this , i think against England Bale would want to prove a point, the welsh & english don't really like eachother although my neighbour is welsh and he is a tarrific fella, but we all know games like these the tackles fly in and tempers flare , so maybe a blessing in desguise , Real won't know whats hit erm hopefully

With vis on this one lobo, bale needed to get up to match fitness, i can see your point but another game under his belt would have brought him on leaps and bounds........having said that he wont have parkers clogging to put up with.

lewspurs wrote:

LOBO wrote:I'm sort of with lought on this , i think against England Bale would want to prove a point, the welsh & english don't really like eachother although my neighbour is welsh and he is a tarrific fella, but we all know games like these the tackles fly in and tempers flare , so maybe a blessing in desguise , Real won't know whats hit erm hopefully

With vis on this one lobo, bale needed to get up to match fitness, i can see your point but another game under his belt would have brought him on leaps and bounds........having said that he wont have parkers clogging to put up with.

I think it could be risking injury Lew, england will know full well Bale would be a key player for there attack , he will be marked out the game to certain exstent , and i can just see it the tackles coming in , games like these are few and far between and passions are high, id much rather have a half match fit Bale for real who play at a much slower pace like the Italians do and would suit our game rather than putting a half match fit Bale up against England who will kick lumps out of him.