Andre Villas-Boas has defended the decision to play Gareth Bale in a pre-season match against Los Angeles Galaxy despite his omission from the Team GB football team.

Bale's appearance in Tottenham Hotspur's match on Tuesday has drawn criticism after he asked not to be included in Stuart Pearce's squad for this summer's Olympic Games.

However, Villas-Boas insists that Bale's selection was vital as the Spurs manager wants him to play a certain amount of time before the beginning of the Premier League season.

The Portuguese manager said: "Gareth is young and physically a beast, so he was able to put in the effort.

"We extended that as we want him to complete a certain amount of minutes before we start the season.

"You can say we took a risk. If you recall, 10 minutes into the game he was stretching himself so he was feeling some muscle tightness. But it was controllable and we just let him run. We welcome his recovery, which is the most important thing for me."

Bale had reportedly been suffering with a back injury this summer.