• Europa League

Villas-Boas hopeful on Bale injury

ESPN staff
April 4, 2013
Highlights: Tottenham 2-2 Basel

Tottenham Hotspur manager Andre Villas-Boas is hopeful the injury Gareth Bale suffered against Basel in the Europa League on Thursday night is not severe.

Bale, 23, was stretchered off in the closing moments of Spurs' 2-2 Europa League quarter-final first leg draw with Basel after he appeared to fall heavily on his right ankle.

The Wales international was taken down the tunnel and looked to be in pain, sparking fears he could miss the remainder of the season as his side look to clinch Champions League qualification and also progress in the Europa League.

"He rolled on his ankle, at the moment there is a lot of pain, but hopefully not as bad as it could have been,'' Villas-Boas told BBC Sport.

Speaking in his post-match press conference, the Portuguese coach said he expects Bale to miss no more than two matches, with the forward to be assessed on Friday morning.

Spurs had fallen two goals behind against Basel at White Hart Lane before Emmanuel Adebayor pulled one back prior to the break and Gylfi Sigurdsson struck to salvage a draw in the second half.

Reflecting on the result, goalkeeper Brad Friedel told ITV1: "When you're down 2-0, to come back, we can take a little bit of encouragement from that. But we didn't start the game well, we know that and the gaffer had some words at half-time.

"It will be tough out there, but we've got a lot of quality in our squad.''

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