What Hendrix is saying we should all know, Bale is a long term investment. He will be in his prime when Ronaldo is at the end of his. One day, he will be our sure fire leader. Thats assuming we don't get a couple more Galactico's between now and then
Just wonder what his goal count would be if they gave him the green light, penalties and free kicks. Pretty damn good and factor in some of those assists. We have a future Ballon. I don't see anybody besides the usual 3 or 4 players that are better than him right now. Next year, I am sure he is going to be the man in terms of production but he would still be below CR on the food chain but I see him play a huge impact for the team next year. Probably more so than CR. Might as well call it and bookmark this.
Watching the game again and his assist to Cristiano was something else. Could've taken the shot but unselfish, was the right choice imo, pure pace and power. I think we can trust him defensively, he was at times at a full back when Carvajal needed cover and the Cristiano goal was started by him at the edge of the box defending and winning it back. One more big game to go. He has been great this season, to think he will be even better next season.
Oh he was fantastic. Before the game I foolishly said I'd prefer Isco over Bale, thinking Bale would struggle with being double-minded. How wrong was I? Bale dropped deep and covered, worked his ass off. Wasn't too attacking and chose the right times to exploit their defense. Very very impressive game by him. His pressing was great as well. People will over look what he brought, but I suggest to them re-watch that match. It was like having a different dimension of Di Maria on the other side. EDIT: Oh and LULZ @ you Bale haters and you Florentino Perez haters. You attempted to bash and bash Bale and he has proven yet again his worth to this club. To the Uncle Flo haters, yeah he isn't perfect but he loves this club. Far more than the closetcules who enjoy bashing it and him.
I think either of them could've gotten the job done, but I feel smart in retrospect being on the 4-4-2 + Bale train. I agree, he was good yesterday. His defending was very composed and I think he had a couple of decent tackles as well - which is relatively unsurprising given how his career started. Edit: Per WhoScored, Gareth had more combined tackles + interceptions than anyone other than Pepe (that includes both teams). He also had more successful dribbles than anyone else in our XI. So basically he had a flawless match after that missed shot at the beginning. Everything we've seen so far suggests Gareth can play in any of the wide positions on the pitch, from LB/RB all the way to LW/RW, and perhaps even as a second striker. His skill is not as self-evident as Cristiano's but he's unbelievably fast and very effective.
If he managed to convert that volley we may as well have cancelled the goal of the season award. Incredibly difficult to control a volley like that.
He's scored a goal similar to that one though a couple of weeks ago. It may have been better, if he had tried with the inner side of his foot, though you can't blame him for going for the beauty. All in all he's really showing that Real has a bright future ahead.
The goal against La Real? That ball was much easier to strike as it was pretty much flat on the ground. Last night he was much further out and could only have scored by hitting it first time. To get the power and flight just right on a dipping ball is pretty damned hard.
Oh, I agree with you, I just think he could've made it a bit easier for himself. Actually it wasn't flat on the ground, he was able to control that one, so I guess the comparison isn't that accurate. Still, it's easier to hit the way you want it with the inner side of your foot.
Not to mention, the fact he has done it before bears no relation to its degree of difficulty! Both were difficult strikes.
If Bale can defend like this for this team as well as attack, we will have balance with the BBC out there. His contribution was amazing to see. What a player.
I really wasn't surprised by his ability to defend and nick the ball, those who have been following him since his Southampton days would know that he was a pretty good defender, but a fantastic midfielder in the making. Just because he has some extraordinary attacking abilities it doesn't mean that he's all of a sudden inept at defending for short time period.
I think there's some kind of assumption that he wasn't willing to put in the work defensively, the same assumption people make about Cristiano. Like Cristiano (perhaps to a lesser degree), I'm sure Gareth wouldn't prefer to track back for 90 minutes. But I've always suspected that the reason we haven't typically gotten much defensive work rate out of our front three was largely not due to player petulance but manager preference - i.e., it's sort of a catch-22, the more guys you have back, the less you're able to counterattack quickly, and a talent like Cristiano or Bale is sort of wasted putting in lots of defensive effort (OTOH there are also guys like Ozil who just aren't very good defensively, and Cristiano and Benz definitely aren't the tacklers that Bale and di Maria are).
From his secret diary: Two athletes running towards la decima!! But next time I’ll run slower to enjoy the view and learn from the best. ^^