JOSE MOURINHO revealed Gareth Bale missed Tottenham’s draw at Crystal Palace through illness – but stressed it was not coronavirus.
Eyebrows were raised when the Welshman’s name was not included in the matchday squad for the trip to Selhurst Park on Sunday.
But Mourinho explained that the forward’s omission was down to a sickness as Dele Alli took his place on the bench.
He told Sky Sports: “He doesn’t feel very well.
“Of course I want to say that no coronavirus, no he tested [negative]. No chance.
“But kind of a flu, this kind of this little feeling he is not feeling so well.”
Bale returned to Spurs from Real Madrid in the summer on a season-long loan.
The 31-year-old’s matches in the Premier League have largely been restricted to cameos off the bench.
His last top-flight action came on November 8 in the win at West Brom.
Bale has played in every single Europa League game for Mourinho’s side this season and scored twice for the club this term.
Mourinho revealed at the start of the season several of his players had suffered with Covid-19 throughout the summer.
But he refused to name names, saying: “We had cases of positive Covid, we have the right not to say which players, but we had players, we had other players in quarantine due to proximity with positive players.
“We had a player in quarantine because he was on holiday in a country which the government quarantined, we had national teams where many of them went to their team so it was a difficult pre-season.”
Full-back Matt Doherty did test positive for the virus last month and was forced out of international duty for Republic of Ireland.
