Boas reveals how heart-to-heart with Bale led to his best Tottenham form

Andre Villas-Boas has revealed how a chat with Gareth Bale during their time working together at Tottenham set the Welshman on track to become a star.

Bale had been at White Hart Lane for six years by this point but was a little out of sorts when he came to visit the Portuguese manager.

Now Villas-Boas has lifted the lid on how the meeting led to a tactical shift that enabled Spurs to see the best of the winger.

'Gareth wasn't feeling that he was unlocking his full potential, he came into my office one day and said: 'Boss, I'm not happy, things are not going well for me,' Villas-Boas recalled to Copa90.

'Ok,' I said, 'I can try and change to a 4-4-2 formation and you can play free at the top with [Emmanuel] Adebayor and I can move [Gylfi] Sigurdsson to the left, cutting in.

'This is when Gareth starts on that run of games where he scored, I think for five or six games in a row, and then the results exploded, and his career exploded from that moment on.'

It was during the January of the one full season - 2012-13 - Villas-Boas was in charge at Tottenham that Bale came to see him.

The shift to a more attacking role proved to Bale's liking and he went on to score in matches against Norwich City, West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle United in the Premier League, plus Lyon in the Europa League.

Shortly afterwards, he scored a dramatic last-minute winner in a 3-2 win over London rivals West Ham at Upton Park, running to celebrate with his manager on the sidelines.

In March 2013, Bale produced an excellent performance as Spurs beat Inter Milan 3-0 at White Hart Lane in the last-16 of the Europa League.

By the end of the season, Bale had scored 26 goals and contributed 15 assists in all competitions for his club.

Of course, this attracted covetous glances from elsewhere and the Welshman duly moved to Real Madrid that summer for a world record fee of £85.3million.

In his absence, Tottenham struggled and Villas-Boas left the club in December 2013 in the wake of a 6-0 defeat at Manchester City and a 5-0 home loss to Liverpool.

Bale has since returned to Tottenham on loan from Real with the fans eagerly awaiting his second debut.