Bargain Bale! Ahead of El Clasico, Neymar's stock at Barca has plummeted while Real's €100m man has 14 goals and 17 assists



Real Madrid are four points ahead of Barcelona ahead of El Clasico



Gareth Bale was taken off in his first clasico while Neymar scored



Bale is now winning plaudits in Spain while Barca rival Neymar is faltering

Bale has scored 14 goals and made 17 assists - more than any other player

Confusion over the actual cost of Neymar's transfer has distracted him

Ronaldo and Messi will be competing to break more records on Sunday



Five months is a long time in football and an eternity in the struggle for supremacy between Real Madrid and Barcelona.

When Gareth Bale made his Clasico debut in October Barcelona won 2-1 with a goal from Neymar who had supposedly cost just £48.6m.

Bale was hauled off after hour – having cost twice as much as his opposing number and yet looking like half the player.

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The Real deal: Gareth Bale joined Real Madrid from Tottenham for a world record £86m in the summer

On the up: After a stuttered start, Bale has started to prove his worth with 14 goals and 17 assists this season

Inauspicious: Bale was hauled off after a lacklustre performance in his first clasico at the Nou Camp

Boy from Brazil: By contrast, Neymar scored on his first taste of La Liga's biggest game

When he makes his Santiago Bernabeu clasico debut on Sunday Real Madrid will be four points ahead of their rivals instead of six points behind and his world has been turned upside down.

Gone are the concerns about his injury problems and with them the doubts over his price tag.

Neymar’s real value, in contrast, has everyone obsessed. An investigation into how much he really cost is now up around the £80m mark and as the price has risen, his worth to the team has declined. The more expensive he becomes the worse he looks; and the more Bale looks like a bargain in comparison.

Bale has found a home out on the right of Real Madrid’s now famed BBC front three alongside [Karim] Benzema and Cristiano [Ronaldo] and the combination has scored 52 goals between them with Bale getting on the scoresheet 14 times and providing 17 assists – more than any other La Liga based player.

Reversal of fortune: Bale and Neymar's careers in Spain have moved in opposite directions since El Clasico



Provider: Bale has notched up more assists - 17 - than any other player in the Spanish league

B: Gareth BALE

B: Karim BENZEMA

C: CRISTIANO Ronaldo



The injuries have cleared up too. After a two-month period around the mid-winter break when his minutes-played ratio dropped below 50 per cent and it seemed he was being held together by blue Kinesiology tape, he now looks far less worthy of the ‘Glassman’ nickname he had been given by some, and has played all but 17 minutes of the last nine games

There was a cruel irony that his room in the players’ private hotel at Madrid’s Valdebebas training complex where the team often stay overnight before or after big games was opposite the physio’s room, but he is now taking big matches in his stride, even coming off the bench in midweek to replace Jese whose cruciate ligament had been torn ruling him out for the rest of the season.



Tale of the tape: How Bale and Neymar's first seasons in la Liga have compared

The 21-year-old Jese had come on in that first Clasico scoring Real Madrid’s consolation goal and begging the question why spend 100m euros when you have such a home-grown talent coming through for free.

Shedding light on Bale’s physical fragility his former Wales boss John Toshack told Marca this week: 'He had several serious injuries when he was a very young player. The first one ruled him out for 10 months and the second for nine. That is a long time to be out between the age of 18 and 20. The treatment he had was not always the best and that is why he needs to be 100 per cent and can’t be one of these players who can play through injury.'



Money matters: Neymar signed for Barcelona for a supposed £48.6m, although that price is being questioned

Paying the price: The more Neymar is reported to be worth, the worse his performances on the pitch have been

Brothers in arms: Meanwhile, Bale has struck up a blossoming relationship with the world's best, Ronaldo

The stress of not being physically right accompanied the doubts over that world record price-tag. He said on the day of his presentation that he would have signed for a penny. That certainly would have lowered expectations. He had not come cheaply and no-one has let him forget that during a first season in which during several games he has even been whistled by impatient supporters.

Olympiacos coach Michel is a former Real Madrid player who knows all about the demands of the Bernabeu. He was jeered too despite being a home-grown talent and Spain international.

'It’s impossible for that price tag not to weigh heavy,' he says. 'The first person who will think ‘I’m probably not worth 100m’ is the player himself.

Fighting fit: Bale has recovered from the injury problems that plagued the start of his career at the Bernabeu

Weighing heavy: Olympiacos coach Michel (C) has warned of the pressure on Bale from his enormous price tag

'It’s not the player’s fault, it’s the market’s fault. And the fact that he doesn’t understand the Spanish media will not save him because you can smell the doubts. I’m certain that he will be aware of people questioning the price. The spotlight is on him and it is not just an external spotlight. At a big club like Madrid the spotlight is also internal.'

But the escalation of the Neymar fee with the uncovering of more and more contracts that if interpreted to have been simulated wages will send the price rising further because of tax evasion penalties has changed Bale’s status as La Liga’s most expensive player.

And the idea that the Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti has to pick Bale because he cost so much has been replaced by the notion that Gerardo Martino at Barcelona is under boardroom pressure to select Neymar.

Frontrunners: Real Madrid can open up a seven point lead over Barcelona is they win the clasico

Stick or twist? Criticism of Carlo Ancelotti (L) and Gerardo Martinez's selection policies have changed



'No-one can say that Bale doesn’t deserve to be in the team on his own merit because his numbers speak for themselves,' says Michel.

Ancelotti has admitted his team for Sunday’s game now picks itself with Bale very much in it. Barcelona coach Martino, meanwhile, knows supporters want him to leave Neymar where he was last weekend when Barça won 7-0 – on the bench.

The forward line of Alexis Sanchez, Pedro and Leo Messi has actually only scored one goal fewer than Real Madrid’s famed BBC and Barça followers want those three to start this weekend.

Whoever accompanies Messi, Sunday will still be about him and Ronaldo first and foremost. The idea that Ronaldo is now ‘streets ahead of any other player in the world’ as heard by some commentators in midweek forgets that Messi has scored 17 goals in his last 17 games.

The weekend’s duel will throw up the usual race to break more and more ridiculous records.

Record breaker? Ronaldo is one goal away from break Ferenc Puskas' all-time scoring record for Madrid



Lionel Flair: Messi is getting back to his best after a season disrupted by injury

Ronaldo needs another goal to beat Ferenc Puskas’ 240 goals scored for Madrid and Messi is one goal short of Alfredo Di Stefano’s 18 goals scored in the Clasico fixture record. The Argentine is also one goal from Hugo Sanchez in the all-time league scorers list – passing him would leave only Telmo Zarra to aim for.

The two of them will fight it out for top of the bill but there is a fascinating undercard.