You can’t tell me that Zidane doesn’t rate Bale because he won’t go out for a midnight paella? It might be nice for him to do so but it’s unlikely that it will be the defining factor in his future at the club. Let’s say it was the other way round and Bale was a fluent Spanish speaker, was the life and soul of the party and had a tattoo across his forehead that read “Barcelona suck” but had only scored half the number of goals, would ZZ be building his team around him?

Zidane was in charge when the club extended Bale’s contract 3 years ago so if his failure to adapt to the Spanish culture was a big problem then presumably they would have sold him then rather than decide to give 600k a week to play golf.

This is the same club and supporters that even criticised Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the greatest players of the modern era. They are basically not very nice people and they will use their connections within the Madrid based media to plant any story they like.

There is less than 1% chance of Spurs signing him this summer, he just doesn’t fit the manager’s plan nor does he fit the blueprint of a player with resale value not to mention the issue of money.