Tottenham are not over-reliant on Gareth Bale, says goalkeeper Brad Friedel.

Bale's superb efforts this year have led to claims that Spurs are overly-reliant on their star forward, who has scored 21 goals.

"That's ridiculous. That's a poor comment," said an angry Friedel, who spent three years at Liverpool when he first came to England.

"Gareth is an exceptional player and we have a lot of exceptional players.

"These comments about one-man teams... I mean, people talk about if Barcelona didn't have Lionel Messi they wouldn't have 40 goals but they do have Messi and they get the 40 goals.

"Real Madrid have Cristiano Ronaldo. We have Gareth Bale. If Chicago Bulls didn't have Michael Jordan they wouldn't have won all those championships, but they did so they won.

"Every good team has their star players. Gareth is playing well for us. We are a better team for it, but we have some exceptional players that can step in and do the job."