Tell me if you have heard this one before -- Gareth Bale is for sale.

Rumors continue to spread about Real Madrid's expensive player being up for sale, but it is hard to know what to believe at this juncture. Everyone knows that Premier League teams would salivate at the prospect of bringing back a dynamic star who thrived at Tottenham a few season ago.

But the reality is that Real Madrid is unlikely to take the bait and split relations with Bale.

At 25, Bale is slated to be in his prime in the next year or two. And despite "struggling" for a better part of the year, he still has 17 goals on the year for Los Blancos, good for third on the team behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema. He has seven assists in Spain to add to that number, meaning that he has contributed to 20 goals for his side in the domestic league. He probably will not reach of the heights of 12 assists that he had last year, but he could still surpass the 15 goals he had a year ago.

Which would indicate that despite being perceived as having a "poorer" season, Bale is still in a position to score the same number of goals that he scored in Spain last season. Not a bad show of consistency for a player supposedly having a bad year.

And other stats indicate that he is actually in better shape this year. He is winning more aerials, completing more passes, getting more shots on goal, completing more dribbles, making more key passes per game and being dispossessed less often.

Wait, this is the player that everyone wants to see sold this summer?

The defensive stats are nothing to write home about and are decidedly worse than last year's numbers, but that is a function of Madrid's system. Bale is playing with less space and has to track back less often because his club has more control of the ball. And yet he has more clearances this season and fewer fouls overall. He is actually making more blocks as well.

So will Real Madrid move Bale? Only if the plan is fund a move for another major player, such as Marco Reus. But Los Blancos have a dynamic star in Bale and are unlikely to let him go.

All stats from WhoScored.com.