Gareth Bale loses his number 11 on Real Madrid return

Bale has to bail on the No. 11

It has been revealed that Gareth Bale will not wear his signature No 11 shirt upon his return for Real Madrid this season, due to Marco Asensio having taken the No 11 jersey during Bale's absence. Spanish outlet AS reports Bale will now have to choose between No 14 or No 16, Casemiro is set to take the No 5 while Raphael Varane is making the move to Manchester United. We may have gotten somewhat used to seeing him in the 9 for his short but sweet second spell at Spurs, but it's still gonna be weird not seeing him in that iconic number. https://www.instagram.com/p/CPY8gDJjUTQ/ "Obviously there's been a lot of things written about whether I'm doing this and doing that," he said back in June. "For me, the main thing is I don't want to say anything that's going to cause more chaos or more drama or cause a distraction. I just want to focus on this Euros. "I don't want to say anything that is going to cause any problems on what I am doing or what I am not doing. My focus is just on the Euros. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQT1h_3hVTX/ "When the Euros finishes for us then I will sit down and decide what I want to do." "Gareth has not played much in the Premier League, but he scored lots of goals, was very effective in recent games when he had chance to play," said Carlo Ancelotti last month. "He is coming back, I know him very well, he will be motivated to play better and have a great season, no doubt." https://www.instagram.com/p/CQjhm5bhRYO/ Bale insisted he was always going to return to Madrid, clearly wanting to get some proper game time in ahead of the Euros, though he still played most of his minutes coming off the bench. However, even in limited appearances, he made a big impact in a number of games and subsequently came out with the best strike rate last season: a goal every 99 minutes - even better than Kane.