Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane insists Gareth Bale wants to stay at the club this season and Madrid ‘are counting on him’.
Chinese club Jiangsu Suning had an agreement to sign the player from Madrid earlier in the summer before Los Blancos pulled the plug on a deal, as they would not receive a transfer fee.
The Welsh wizard celebrated his 30th birthday last month and was said not to be part of Zidane’s plans at the Bernabeu, while the Madrid fans had turned on him.
Bale has three years remaining on his Madrid contract and his hefty wage bill means that he has no strong desire to exit the club this summer despite the wishes of the hierarchy in the Spanish capital.
“What has changed is that the player wants to stay, nothing more,” Zidane told reporters when quizzed on Bale’s future.
“What is interesting for us, in the first place, is that the player wants to stay at the club, that is the most important thing.
“Now, there have been a lot of things said about this situation and I have talked about it too, but the most important thing is that the player wants to stay and we are counting on him.
“He is a really important player for us and he has demonstrated that and right now he has to keep doing what he has done.”
The former Southampton and Spurs winger scored 14 goals with six assists in 42 competitive games last season.
Bale has been linked with an exit from Madrid for months with England and China rumoured to be two possible destinations, but both of those transfer windows have now closed for the summer.
