Gareth Bale out of El Clasico with ankle injury

Gareth Bale will miss Real Madrid's La Liga clash with Barcelona early next month after the ankle injury he sustained in Tuesday's 2-1 Champions League defeat of Sporting Lisbon was diagnosed as a "traumatic dislocation of the peroneal tendons".

After the game, Real coach Zinedine Zidane had described the incident in which Bale was hurt as "more a twist than a knock," but there was clearly already some concern that the issue might be serious although the former French international said that they would wait for the results of Wednesday's tests to come back before jumping to any conclusions.

In a statement yesterday Real said: “After tests carried out on our player Gareth Bale at the Sanitas La Moraleja University Hospital, he has been diagnosed with a traumatic dislocation of the peroneal tendons of his right ankle. His recovery will continue to be assessed.”

It is now expected that the 27 year-old will have to rest completely for two to three weeks after his condition will be assessed again. At best, he seems set to miss both the Classico (on December 3rd) and the important Champions League group game against Borussia Dortmund which the Spaniards must win in order to progress in top spot.

If his recovery is not going well, however, the Welsh international may require a minor operation, something that would extend his spell on the sidelines until late January or early February and keep him out of league games against the likes of Grenada, Seville and Malaga.

Either way, the midfielder, who has scored 11 goals in 20 games for club and country since the summer and recently signed a deal to keep in Madrid until 2022, now looks likely to remain in Spain through the Club World Cup in Japan where real are due to play their first game on December 15th.

There seems little prospect at this stage of the injury posing a threat to his participation in the World Cup qualifier between Ireland and Wales on March 24th, more than 17 weeks from now, with even the most pessimistic assessments of the time required for him to complete his recovery put at around three months.