Spanish football expert Guillem Balague has claimed that Real Madrid players “do not trust” Gareth Bale enough.

Writing in a column for Sky, Balague said that he agreed with the points raised by Bale’s agent Jonathan Barnett, who said that his client didn’t simply get the ball enough.

He also claimed that Bale will never truly flourish at Real till Cristiano Ronaldo stays at the Bernabeu

Balague comments on Gareth Bale

It is certain that out of the three – Karim Benzema, Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo – Bale is the one who gets the ball less often.

Why isn’t he getting the ball as often? That is when the discussion should start, because I feel some players still don’t trust him enough.

Why not? Partly because he doesn’t seem to link up enough with the team. Despite the fact he runs a lot, he’s the 11th player in recovering the ball, so they don’t see him giving enough solutions.

For me, there’s another element – Cristiano Ronaldo is the leader of the team, and the superstar if you like. It cannot be any other who has got the same freedom to do whatever he wants and not work defensively.

I am pretty certain that the day Ronaldo leaves, Bale will become the star of Real Madrid. But while Ronaldo’s there that’s going to be hard to do