africanspurs
Justin Edinburgh
messi used to dive just as bad as anyone in big CL games against english teams. i wouldnt say it was chronic but he's hardly an example
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Gareth Bale
- Thread starter GGyid
- Start date
messi used to dive just as bad as anyone in big CL games against english teams. i wouldnt say it was chronic but he's hardly an example
SandroSays
Roger Nilsen
One thing people seem to forget in all this is Gibbs (I think) jumping on the floor and asking for a penalty about 10 mins before Bale got his.
indospurs
Young-Pyo Lee
He's been told to do it, players will be more and more wary of going in on him, he needs to protect himself - though it was ironic at Liverpool one foul he didn't get touched, rolled around got angry, then later got studs all down his shin and no yellow for the perp. He's developing a rep for himself, which, if applied correctly can be beneficial, but other times, a slippery and dangerous banana skin.
Jurgen the German
Willie Hall
You can't honestly believe that surely?
Jurgen the German
Willie Hall
He's an example because he doesn't complain to referees, rarely rolls around on the floor and gets up quickly most of the time after being fouled. He is by far the most kicked player in European football, but you never see him complaining about it.
mick cooper
Neil Sullivan
Realistically, if he had been tackled like that anywhere else on the pitch, would you have been disappointed that a free kick had not been awarded? Yes I know that goalkeepers don't attempt to save balls in the middle of the pitch, but the keeper wasn't who the foul was given for.
I cannot see how you would have thought it wasn't a foul. Fouls in the penalty area, earn penalties, its that simple.
OK, Bale made the most of it, but so did the goon who got Parker booked the first time.
Some of you "offended" supporters need to stop being seen to be politically pure, and be realistic.
Absolutely this - a true example both on and off the field
a spur from swansea
Naybet
Well he stood his ground against adams last May,bale carted off,up in Saudi Sportswashing Machine a few years back,he got carted off.........and numerous other challenges,do you think the majority of opposition managers say to their players ,just give bale some time and space,and he'll give the ball back to us,of course not,they'll say kick him as soon as possible and try to slow him down,bale is just being cute and if he sees a challenge coming in he'll go down if need be,and get the defender booked............the majority of time he gets up and carries on but no one should have a pop at him just because he goes down easily in some challenges.............so what he's one of us and should be supported regardless............
Jurgen the German
Willie Hall
But you do you honestly think that Spurs fans would want him to get injured? Some of us just don't want him to go to ground when there isn't any contact at all. Redknapp himself said that he instructed the physios to not go over to him in training sessions and let him get up himself.
thfcsteff
George Hunt
The physic thing is a different issue, that's about toughening up. The question is whether you think Gareth Bale is a premeditated cheat. I do not not. I think due to the clattering he's had over the last couple of years, he often protects himself as best he can, where I DO think there's a problem, is that he might be a little 'sensitive/soft' and that is most certainly a projection he needs to change. Ronaldo got tougher in his final two years at Man U, and at Madrid doesn't allow oppo to see his concerns. In that sense, Bale and Ronaldo are very, very similar...so again, what it comes down to is whether you think the boy's a premeditated cheat. I do not. Compare him to, say, Hasselbaink, who would absolutely con whatever he could whenever he could...
jaysea67
Erik Edman
Gareth Bale ready to take Tottenham back to the Champions League
From - The Guardian
Gareth Bale ready to take Tottenham back to the Champions League
Winger misses playing in 'the best club competition in the world' and believes Spurs' losing run is just a blip
Gut instinct is to seek evidence of creeping self-doubt. After all, Gareth Bale is freshly arrived from training and, over in Chigwell, he and his Tottenham Hotspur team-mates are supposed to be quaking in their boots. Arsenal are mounting a charge, bitter rivals who had once felt so distant suddenly breathing down their necks as Spurs stumble from an apparently impregnable position. Composure and form have drained from their campaign. Bale should roll up a broken man, all blubbering apologies and nervous glances over his shoulder as if expecting the enemy to close in at any second.
Yet if Tottenham are haunted by talk of impending calamity, then the weary smirk offered up by one of their more talismanic performers acts as an exorcism of sorts. Has the slump been a disaster? A catastrophe? "It's annoying, more than anything else," Bale says when reminded of the first three-game losing sequence of Harry Redknapp's tenure as manager. "It's not a crisis, just a blip. We're third-top, not third-bottom, and the manager has full confidence in us. He's not slaughtering us in the dressing room after we've lost to Manchester United or Everton. He knows we might have won both games, it was that tight, and it will go our way again.
"These have been high-profile matches against teams up there, so people will make a lot of the losses, but it won't take a lot to turn it round. Just a bit of luck. We're a young team who are still growing up together, progressing together. Even with recent results this is still an exciting time and, if we keep building on what we have, who knows what we could achieve in the future?
"People have pointed out what could happen if we don't get back into the Champions League, but look what might happen if we do. We don't want to be losing players like Luka [Modric] in the summer, but if we get Champions League football there'll be no problem keeping the squad together. I have no doubt about that. We know what's at stake, but there's no panic."
Tottenham are in need of a dose of level-headedness. Theirs had been a season of resurgence, flirting on the fringes of a two-horse title race, until they were overwhelmed in the north London derby last month just as everything appeared to be progressing swimmingly. Back when they led 2-0 at Arsenal, they had contemplated holding a 13-point advantage over their rivals. Now, with the landscape shifting, they will entertain Stoke on Wednesday night knowing that, should they fail to conjure a first league win in almost six weeks, Ars?¿ne Wenger's side could stampede over them into third with Chelsea also suddenly back within reach. Saturday afternoon's visit of Bolton Wanderers in the FA Cup quarter-final offers a much needed opportunity to re-establish an up-beat tempo.
Conspiracy theories abound justifying the stutter. It would be easy to point to the Football Association's anticipated interest in Redknapp as a summer successor for Fabio Capello as the root of all recent disruption ÔÇô the topic is clearly being addressed within the dressing room, but is off limit in public ÔÇô though reality suggests culpability lies more with an onerous run of games and an untimely flurry of niggling injuries. Of their past seven league fixtures, five have been against fellow members of the top seven with a trip to Chelsea to come next Saturday. Behind the bravado, it is perhaps telling that the remaining games virtually trip off Bale's tongue as he contemplates the run-ins. "We've just got Chelsea to play, but Arsenal have got Chelsea and Emirates Marketing Project to come yet, and Everton away," he says. "Our run-in's decent. We're more than capable of finishing strongly."
The need to do so is clear, and not merely to tempt Redknapp into spurning his country to remain with this club. Tottenham reveled in their taste of the Champions League last season. Collisions with Internazionale, Milan and Real Madrid still have the locals salivating and the players craving more of the same, the stunted Europa League campaign this year an unwanted reminder of regression. Bale played 27 minutes in that competition's group stage, in a 2-1 home defeat to 10-man PAOK Salonika. He is still charged with memories of scorching Maicon in San Siro and at White Hart Lane, evenings spent systematically humiliating one of the world's most admired full-backs. It is tempting to imagine the Brazilian waking in cold sweats from a recurring nightmare: Spurs' No3 soars away while he heaves to catch up, his legs anchored as if running in treacle.
It was in the Champions League where Bale established his own reputation. The full-backed turned winger was thrust into the limelight overnight, the only Premier League representative voted into uefa.com users' team of 2011 in a four-man midfield alongside Xavi Hern?índez, Andr?®s Iniesta and Arjen Robben. He belonged in that company. "And I miss it, massively," says the 22-year-old. "It's felt as if that is what's been missing this season. It's the best club competition in the world, and I'm desperate to test myself in it. The team are, too. I'm still young and improving, and if I competed in the Champions League again next season I know I'd be a better player than I was last year. I'd offer something different, for sure. I've learned a lot this season, both in terms of adapting my natural game and playing in slightly different positions.
"I'm driving on more through the middle when I can, not just watching games from the left wing and only taking on my full-back. People went on about my pace, about me being the kid who ran the 100 metres in 11.4 seconds as a 14-year-old, but there's more to my game now. People have gone on about me on the right, but we're all floating in that midfield, certainly when we're attacking. Me swapping wings just allows me to attack defenders in a different way. You have to mix it up a bit or it becomes predictable. This is the Premier League and the defenders you're up against are streetwise. They work you out. You need to find new ways of hurting them, and that's what the manager is trying to do with me. You can't afford to be predictable."
What has become more customary is the sight of livid defenders standing over a prone Bale, their faces contorted in complaints of skullduggery. Whether it has been the Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny, Stevenage Borough's Mark Roberts, or Leon Osman at Everton, rivals have been quick to accuse the winger of tumbling to the turf too easily. Redknapp has publicly defended his man, pointing to the lightening pace at which the Wales international careers at his marker. "I couldn't care less what [opposing players] say, unless they're coming right up to my face and saying it," says Bale. "I don't dive. It's just the speed at which I'm running and, if someone tries to clobber me, I'm not going to let them, am I? I'm not taking a stud in my shin for the sake of it, so I jump out of the way. It's still a foul. They've still illegally stopped me running and not touched the ball. The intent is there, so you don't need the contact."
That has long been his philosophy. Gwyn Morris, the head of physical education at Whitchurch high school in Cardiff, had noted the youngster's "evasive skills, which would have made him a very good rugby player", even if Bale was never that way inclined. "I didn't want to get roughed up, and I was too skinny back then," he says, with his sporting talents having taken in cross country running and hockey ahead of rugby union. Yet one of his class-mates, and a team-mate in both five- and 11-a-side football teams, did relish the more physical game. Sam Warburton, fitness permitting, will captain a youthful Wales out at the Millennium stadium knowing victory against the French will seal the nation's third Grand Slam success in eight years, with Bale a keen observer from afar.
The former class-mates' contact is limited to the odd text these days, their chosen sports dominating their lives, but messages were exchanged during last year's World Cup in New Zealand when Warburton's Welsh had threatened an appearance in the final. "I wished him and the boys the best ahead of the semi-final against the French," says Bale, who duly saw Warburton sent off for a dangerous tackle on Vincent Clerc, with Wales eventually edged out 9-8. "I didn't send him one afterwards. I thought I'd best leave that. It's been wonderful watching his achievements, and he and the team have done fantastically well. To see him captaining the side to a Grand Slam would be something else. He fancied himself as a centre-half, as did his brother [Sam's twin, Ben, is a physiotherapist at Newport Dragons' academy] and I think they had a trial at Cardiff City back in the day. But rugby was their game.
"I'll look out for the result and I hope they beat the French, but my focus has to be on Tottenham. The FA Cup can help us pick up again but, having been third in the table for so long, it would be a disappointment if we ended up missing out on finishing above Arsenal. It'd be great to get one over on them ÔÇô there have been a few texts flying about with Theo [Walcott] and Rambo [Aaron Ramsey], too ÔÇô and we've seen Arsenal coming from a long way off. They've had their blip. We're having ours now. But we know what we're capable of. There's no fear of them. None at all." For Bale, the recovery starts here.
From - The Guardian
Gareth Bale ready to take Tottenham back to the Champions League
Winger misses playing in 'the best club competition in the world' and believes Spurs' losing run is just a blip
Gut instinct is to seek evidence of creeping self-doubt. After all, Gareth Bale is freshly arrived from training and, over in Chigwell, he and his Tottenham Hotspur team-mates are supposed to be quaking in their boots. Arsenal are mounting a charge, bitter rivals who had once felt so distant suddenly breathing down their necks as Spurs stumble from an apparently impregnable position. Composure and form have drained from their campaign. Bale should roll up a broken man, all blubbering apologies and nervous glances over his shoulder as if expecting the enemy to close in at any second.
Yet if Tottenham are haunted by talk of impending calamity, then the weary smirk offered up by one of their more talismanic performers acts as an exorcism of sorts. Has the slump been a disaster? A catastrophe? "It's annoying, more than anything else," Bale says when reminded of the first three-game losing sequence of Harry Redknapp's tenure as manager. "It's not a crisis, just a blip. We're third-top, not third-bottom, and the manager has full confidence in us. He's not slaughtering us in the dressing room after we've lost to Manchester United or Everton. He knows we might have won both games, it was that tight, and it will go our way again.
"These have been high-profile matches against teams up there, so people will make a lot of the losses, but it won't take a lot to turn it round. Just a bit of luck. We're a young team who are still growing up together, progressing together. Even with recent results this is still an exciting time and, if we keep building on what we have, who knows what we could achieve in the future?
"People have pointed out what could happen if we don't get back into the Champions League, but look what might happen if we do. We don't want to be losing players like Luka [Modric] in the summer, but if we get Champions League football there'll be no problem keeping the squad together. I have no doubt about that. We know what's at stake, but there's no panic."
Tottenham are in need of a dose of level-headedness. Theirs had been a season of resurgence, flirting on the fringes of a two-horse title race, until they were overwhelmed in the north London derby last month just as everything appeared to be progressing swimmingly. Back when they led 2-0 at Arsenal, they had contemplated holding a 13-point advantage over their rivals. Now, with the landscape shifting, they will entertain Stoke on Wednesday night knowing that, should they fail to conjure a first league win in almost six weeks, Ars?¿ne Wenger's side could stampede over them into third with Chelsea also suddenly back within reach. Saturday afternoon's visit of Bolton Wanderers in the FA Cup quarter-final offers a much needed opportunity to re-establish an up-beat tempo.
Conspiracy theories abound justifying the stutter. It would be easy to point to the Football Association's anticipated interest in Redknapp as a summer successor for Fabio Capello as the root of all recent disruption ÔÇô the topic is clearly being addressed within the dressing room, but is off limit in public ÔÇô though reality suggests culpability lies more with an onerous run of games and an untimely flurry of niggling injuries. Of their past seven league fixtures, five have been against fellow members of the top seven with a trip to Chelsea to come next Saturday. Behind the bravado, it is perhaps telling that the remaining games virtually trip off Bale's tongue as he contemplates the run-ins. "We've just got Chelsea to play, but Arsenal have got Chelsea and Emirates Marketing Project to come yet, and Everton away," he says. "Our run-in's decent. We're more than capable of finishing strongly."
The need to do so is clear, and not merely to tempt Redknapp into spurning his country to remain with this club. Tottenham reveled in their taste of the Champions League last season. Collisions with Internazionale, Milan and Real Madrid still have the locals salivating and the players craving more of the same, the stunted Europa League campaign this year an unwanted reminder of regression. Bale played 27 minutes in that competition's group stage, in a 2-1 home defeat to 10-man PAOK Salonika. He is still charged with memories of scorching Maicon in San Siro and at White Hart Lane, evenings spent systematically humiliating one of the world's most admired full-backs. It is tempting to imagine the Brazilian waking in cold sweats from a recurring nightmare: Spurs' No3 soars away while he heaves to catch up, his legs anchored as if running in treacle.
It was in the Champions League where Bale established his own reputation. The full-backed turned winger was thrust into the limelight overnight, the only Premier League representative voted into uefa.com users' team of 2011 in a four-man midfield alongside Xavi Hern?índez, Andr?®s Iniesta and Arjen Robben. He belonged in that company. "And I miss it, massively," says the 22-year-old. "It's felt as if that is what's been missing this season. It's the best club competition in the world, and I'm desperate to test myself in it. The team are, too. I'm still young and improving, and if I competed in the Champions League again next season I know I'd be a better player than I was last year. I'd offer something different, for sure. I've learned a lot this season, both in terms of adapting my natural game and playing in slightly different positions.
"I'm driving on more through the middle when I can, not just watching games from the left wing and only taking on my full-back. People went on about my pace, about me being the kid who ran the 100 metres in 11.4 seconds as a 14-year-old, but there's more to my game now. People have gone on about me on the right, but we're all floating in that midfield, certainly when we're attacking. Me swapping wings just allows me to attack defenders in a different way. You have to mix it up a bit or it becomes predictable. This is the Premier League and the defenders you're up against are streetwise. They work you out. You need to find new ways of hurting them, and that's what the manager is trying to do with me. You can't afford to be predictable."
What has become more customary is the sight of livid defenders standing over a prone Bale, their faces contorted in complaints of skullduggery. Whether it has been the Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny, Stevenage Borough's Mark Roberts, or Leon Osman at Everton, rivals have been quick to accuse the winger of tumbling to the turf too easily. Redknapp has publicly defended his man, pointing to the lightening pace at which the Wales international careers at his marker. "I couldn't care less what [opposing players] say, unless they're coming right up to my face and saying it," says Bale. "I don't dive. It's just the speed at which I'm running and, if someone tries to clobber me, I'm not going to let them, am I? I'm not taking a stud in my shin for the sake of it, so I jump out of the way. It's still a foul. They've still illegally stopped me running and not touched the ball. The intent is there, so you don't need the contact."
That has long been his philosophy. Gwyn Morris, the head of physical education at Whitchurch high school in Cardiff, had noted the youngster's "evasive skills, which would have made him a very good rugby player", even if Bale was never that way inclined. "I didn't want to get roughed up, and I was too skinny back then," he says, with his sporting talents having taken in cross country running and hockey ahead of rugby union. Yet one of his class-mates, and a team-mate in both five- and 11-a-side football teams, did relish the more physical game. Sam Warburton, fitness permitting, will captain a youthful Wales out at the Millennium stadium knowing victory against the French will seal the nation's third Grand Slam success in eight years, with Bale a keen observer from afar.
The former class-mates' contact is limited to the odd text these days, their chosen sports dominating their lives, but messages were exchanged during last year's World Cup in New Zealand when Warburton's Welsh had threatened an appearance in the final. "I wished him and the boys the best ahead of the semi-final against the French," says Bale, who duly saw Warburton sent off for a dangerous tackle on Vincent Clerc, with Wales eventually edged out 9-8. "I didn't send him one afterwards. I thought I'd best leave that. It's been wonderful watching his achievements, and he and the team have done fantastically well. To see him captaining the side to a Grand Slam would be something else. He fancied himself as a centre-half, as did his brother [Sam's twin, Ben, is a physiotherapist at Newport Dragons' academy] and I think they had a trial at Cardiff City back in the day. But rugby was their game.
"I'll look out for the result and I hope they beat the French, but my focus has to be on Tottenham. The FA Cup can help us pick up again but, having been third in the table for so long, it would be a disappointment if we ended up missing out on finishing above Arsenal. It'd be great to get one over on them ÔÇô there have been a few texts flying about with Theo [Walcott] and Rambo [Aaron Ramsey], too ÔÇô and we've seen Arsenal coming from a long way off. They've had their blip. We're having ours now. But we know what we're capable of. There's no fear of them. None at all." For Bale, the recovery starts here.
I
indianspur
Guest
carry on 'evading' those tackles son =D>
spurspinter1
Steve Carr
"I'm driving on more through the middle when I can, not just watching games from the left wing and only taking on my full-back. People went on about my pace, about me being the kid who ran the 100 metres in 11.4 seconds as a 14-year-old, but there's more to my game now. People have gone on about me on the right, but we're all floating in that midfield, certainly when we're attacking. Me swapping wings just allows me to attack defenders in a different way. You have to mix it up a bit or it becomes predictable. This is the Premier League and the defenders you're up against are streetwise. They work you out. You need to find new ways of hurting them, and that's what the manager is trying to do with me. You can't afford to be predictable."
He speaks as if his going through the middle is a good thing. I guess his agent has convinced him fully that he is the next CR7.
"I don't dive. It's just the speed at which I'm running and, if someone tries to clobber me, I'm not going to let them, am I? I'm not taking a stud in my shin for the sake of it, so I jump out of the way. It's still a foul. They've still illegally stopped me running and not touched the ball. The intent is there, so you don't need the contact."
Ugh...
He speaks as if his going through the middle is a good thing. I guess his agent has convinced him fully that he is the next CR7.
"I don't dive. It's just the speed at which I'm running and, if someone tries to clobber me, I'm not going to let them, am I? I'm not taking a stud in my shin for the sake of it, so I jump out of the way. It's still a foul. They've still illegally stopped me running and not touched the ball. The intent is there, so you don't need the contact."
Ugh...
elyid
Milija Aleksic
:lol:
Rorschach
Sonny Walters
For me he should be sticking predominately to the left, and then swapping wings and bursting through the middle occasionally just to keep the full back guessing.
I just think at the moment he has the balance wrong and goes walkabouts too often, destroying the shape of the team. Bale's more expansive role is a good tactic but just needs to be tempered somewhat with with a more traditional wing role.
As with Walker he is a young player still learning his trade and so will only get better with time.
I just think at the moment he has the balance wrong and goes walkabouts too often, destroying the shape of the team. Bale's more expansive role is a good tactic but just needs to be tempered somewhat with with a more traditional wing role.
As with Walker he is a young player still learning his trade and so will only get better with time.