THROUGHOUT the summer, I warned that far from being the exciting and monumental red letter day my media colleagues were portraying it as, Gareth Bale’s impending transfer to Real Madrid was likely to be bad news for Wales.

While I could understand where the excitement was coming from, the kudos and status of the most expensive player in the world being Welsh, there were always likely to be bigger issues at play.

And as it turns out, not only was I right, but the Wales manager Chris Coleman has already conceded as such.

When I suggested we’d see Bale far less in a Wales shirt, many of Twitter told me I was deluded, or merely a bitter Spurs fan. “Real Madrid don’t stop Ronaldo playing for Portugal,” they told me.

Yet here we are, just one friendly down and Coleman admits Wales are powerless to not just follow the whims of those at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

Speaking after Saturday’s dreary draw with Finland, Coleman told reporters: “There will be pressure from Madrid for him to come with us. It’s important we are not dogmatic about it. They will bite us on the backside in the end.

“For the bigger picture it might be worth us saying: ‘Just miss this one.’ It depends on when the game is. It depends on what we have got coming up and they have got coming up.

“If it’s away...if it’s at home, it’s nice for the Cardiff public to see him. The Welsh public want to see him.

“If we were away and he’d had a lot of football and he was tired, even if he was fit that could be a conversation we have.

“He’s playing a lot of games in Madrid. We have to look at it long term as well. As much as we need him, we need to look after him as well.”

Coleman is planning a trip to Madrid to discuss things but after setting his stall out as he has, what’s the point? Is Bale playing more now than he was at Spurs? Absolutely not.

The discussions will be pretty simple, surely?

“Whatever you say goes, Real Madrid.”