It was at left back, when Benny was injured, that Bale got his chance. When Benny came back Bale got pushed forward onto the left wing, which at that point was Modric's position. Call it luck if you want but, for me, Bale has a lot to thank Redknapp and Avb for.
how can moving a player from left back to basically a forward be luck? Its not as if he just accidentally became a forward. The managers (harry and avb) saw potential, nurtured it and had the balls to try new things and change his position. He didn't go onto the pitch one weekend a left back and come off at the end of the game as a forward.
that fantastic that he almost joined Nottm Forest on loan and Bale himself has admitted that he wanted to go too. I remember us being linked to buying him from you guys a couple of years back too before we got Enrique. Without doubt he has 'Arry to thank. Not so much AVB, he was already establish as a quality attacking player by the time AVB took over.
I didn't say moving him was lucky, I said Spurs were lucky in response to someone saying you can replace bale because you bought him in the first place. why? because he was bought as a LB, the only position he had played professional football and the club only found out he was better further forward because he was asked to fill in at LM due to injuries/suspensions (I don't recall which, may have been both?)
Neither. He'd been doing a lot of damage with forward runs from left-back and when Assou-Ekotto returned to fitness Redknapp decided to play him further up the pitch. He then played him on the right and Villas-Boas moved him all over the place. We've shown that we can sign good players in recent years, anyway. I'm more concerned about our failure to integrate our youth products.
YES! To such a degree that one of our better ones just got shuffled out the door for some baffling reason.
Can you persuade him to stay for another season especially after signing a couple of good players? I'm sure the latest Soldado signing might give Bale some doubts as it shows some serious intent from you guys.
No offence Gerrez you shouldn't comment if you're memory is selective! as we get this often ""bale was crap" he wasn't crap, any spurs fan who has a memory will remember the impact he made under Jol before he was injured, then he got unnecessary stick from fans who actually believed we should sell him, hence all the gossip in the paper about him going forest but that was never on the cards. Bale was always going to be a star, all it took for was a manager to believe in him and get the best out of him, which Redknapp done and AVB carried on, yet another manager could quite easily have took the easy option and discarded Bale yet if that happened he would have shone and then been picked up by a premier league club.
What do we think now, will we some serious Bale or not? Does Jose really believe in him? Surely we must see him play a bit more than he has.
Being left on the bench most weeks is making it look like a pointless signing. He's never going to get in a rhythm if he's twiddling his thumbs and then playing 45 minutes against an 8th tier team. So right now, I'd say no, we won't get some serious Bale. I think with a run of games he could come good, really good in fact but whether he gets that or not, who knows? It's looking more and more unlikely each passing match to be honest. I thought by now we'd be seeing a more integrated Bale and if anything, we're seeing him feature even less.
Reasons : IMHO two commercial and one personal for Levy. The on-pitch one (which we all want but has not happened) appears to be deemed as a bonus.
The obvious issue at the moment is we now have two Narratives if we drop points: not playing Dele, and not playing Bale Both of them got trotted out after the Fulham game, with fans leaning more towards Dele while pundits leaned towards Bale - and it's not good when fans and pundits are able to pick different players who aren't featuring as a reason for dropping points
There is still time for good things to happen for Bale and us but I have to say that Jose is way more conservative than I expected. Is he proving that success in football is all about not taking risks? I always thought you won games by taking a direct path to the unexpected. Would successful football managers make successful bank managers rather than used car salesmen? You have to think it would all be very different if we had full stadiums.