Gareth Bale slams Adam

Gareth Bale has called Charlie Adam a coward, after the Liverpool man injured him in a pre-season friendly.

The Tottenham winger had to be withdrawn from a friendly fixture between the sides in the United States, in the second instance of the Scottish midfielder injuring the Welsh attacker in the last year.

Bale is reluctant to accept Adam’s apology and admits that he is in a lot of pain.

“From what I’ve seen of him on pitch, I think he’s a bit of a coward,” Bale told reporters after the incident.

“I was surprised to see a challenge like that in a friendly. We’re all over here to build our fitness and get a good workout and what he did as over the top, to be honest.

“But some people are like that and it’s just wrong.

“My ankle is sore – very, very sore. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes. I’ll probably have to have a scan.

“There are pictures on the internet of what he did before when he snapped all my ankle ligaments. I was out for three months that time and one player told me he went out to do the same thing to me again.

“Seriously, I haven’t ever done anything to him. He’s obviously come for me twice now – and he’s got me twice.

“I would have understood it had it been a slightly mis-timed tackle, even though it was just a friendly. But the ball was 10 yards past him already and was nowhere near him when he came through my ankle.

“When someone makes a very bad tackle on you in a game you expect him to come up and apologise. But I’ve had no apology from him and I don’t really want one from him to be honest.

“That’s what kind of person he is like. He’s done it before, so I’m not going to accept his apology.

“All I want to do is play my game and play it the right way. It’s flattering when players try to take you out in a game but when it threatens your career, it becomes more serious than that.

“It’s unsportsmanlike and I don’t think any player should be like that,” he concluded.

By Gareth McKnight