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Thursday, March 22, 2007
John Toshack has hit back at Geroge Burley who wants him to leave Gareth Bale out of Wales's two crunch Euro 2008 qualifiers.
The Wales boss was initially responding to claims from Burley that 17-year-old Bale - a £10million target for both Manchester United and Tottenham - is approaching burn-out in his first full season.Burley claims left-back Bale is worn out mentally and physically and would be happier if the youngster does not play against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin on Saturday or in next Wednesday's match in Cardiff against San Marino.
Toshack said: "Bale has played virtually every game for Southampton since October, but the last couple of friendlies for us we have not played him. We felt it was best to leave him out. Maybe he could have been rested a bit more by his club over the last few months."
Toshack insists Bale is now his first choice left-back, adding: "He was Southampton's best player when I last saw him.
"Now he has had Saturday, Sunday and Monday without training to get his rest, and he has had a couple of light sessions since.
"We feel he will be okay for Saturday. We play about 10 games a season, and I have never heard of international managers being asked by clubs to rest their players.
"George Burley, though, is not the only one. There has been a few.
"The Championship is so tight and there is a mad rush on for promotion places, you could see it coming before Christmas."
He added: "I can understand club managers, I have been in that situation myself at various clubs.
"We have left Gareth out of friendly games, but in these two matches we have got to put out our best side.
"It has been a long season for everybody. A lot of players are feeling tired or carrying niggling injuries.
"You can understand managers getting a bit nervous at this stage of the season, with them seeing chances they thought they had now slipping away.
"There's four or five clubs in the same situation. But we have already found ourselves going into qualifying games this season suddenly without half a dozen players, but they all seem to be playing the next game for their clubs.
"We cannot afford at this stage to be resting players. We have been pushing young players through for this very reason, these are the games that they will learn a lot from."
Wales will travel to Dublin tomorrow, and Toshack will send ex-Saint Arron Davies and Shrewsbury's David Edwards back to their clubs to play in league matches before returning to the squad on Sunday.
