Football shorts: Gareth Bale| David Moyes| Sepp Blatter| Shaun Wright-Phillips

Bale rolled his ankle and was stretchered off late in the 2-2 draw and a scan has shown the Wales international could return as early as 21 April to face second-placed Manchester City in the Barclays Premier League.

“The results of these scans have indicated that all three players are expected to return to training within two weeks,” said Spurs in a statement on their website yesterday.

The other players are William Gallas and Aaron Lennon, who were also injured against the Swiss club.

Moyes named manager of month for tenth time

DAVID Moyes was yesterday named manager of the month for March after his Everton side pulled off a perfect run of league results with three victories from three matches.

As well as beating champions Manchester City 2-0, Everton also picked up maximum points against Stoke City and Reading.

Moyes, who has now scooped the honour ten times, says the accolade is a reward for the efforts of the players.

“It’s an award for all the players and how well they have done in March,” Moyes said. “The results they have had over the last month have been excellent, especially the games against Manchester City and Stoke. Our form has never been too far away and let’s hope we can keep that standard up right to the end of the season now.”

Blatter backs down from relegation idea on racism

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has expressed misgivings about the idea of relegation and points deductions as punishments for racism, suggesting it could encourage fans to deliberately try and get matches stopped.

In January, Blatter proposed the possible introduction of such sanctions for teams whose fans were guilty of racism but appeared to back away from that stance yesterday. “Where does it end?” he asked at an event in Zurich. “To what extent can we expect that a game is stopped, by players walking off the field? Can we stop it by deducting points or by relegating a team? Or will this lead to persons coming to the stadium wanting to stop the game intentionally?”

Wright-Phillips out for remainder of season

Queens Park Rangers’ hopes of avoiding relegation from the Barclays Premier League suffered a blow yesterday with the news that winger Shaun Wright-Phillips will miss the rest of the season with an ankle injury.

The 31-year-old underwent surgery on his right ankle on Thursday, ruling him out of the remaining seven matches of QPR’s survival bid. “The operation needed doing. We tried to keep him going and he tried to keep going,” manager Harry Redknapp said. “The kid’s played with pain and has not felt anywhere near 100 per cent fit for a long time. He couldn’t train or play to his maximum, so full credit to him for trying to play through it, but in the end the pain was too much.”