Player Watch: Gareth Bale - Retires

[dagraham]

He didn’t lose the ball 20 times did he? Didn’t seem like he did anyway, maybe he did and I’ve just got my Bale goggles on.

Well the stats also say 0 crossses completed. Even though one cross directly led to the 2nd goal ( but it’s turned in by their player so doesn’t register).

Also ignores a fair few clever, perfectly executed passes into space ( such as the reverse pass to Doherty), but which came to nothing as the other player did nothing with it.

Bottom line is stats are useful, but not the last word on anything and can be misleading.

The only thing rubbish about Bale was his physical condition. He looked leggy and slow and that’s a shock to the system for fans.

 

[neogenisis]

He literally just looked like a player who hasnt played much football, thats it.

 

[hughy]

It's on Sofascore as well, feel free to have a look: https://www.sofascore.com/football/2020-10-22

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Fair enough mate. But as you've said with Lucas the stats aren't always indicitive of the performance.

 

[DEFchenkOE]

Decent shift but very rusty, it's understandable considering he has played consistently for what over a year?

Does anyone know if he's had any bad knee injuries while at Madrid as his running style when at full speed seems like he's almost limping slightly. Or maybe it's just my eyes deceiving me a bit.

 

[glacierSpurs]

Decent shift but very rusty, it's understandable considering he has played consistently for what over a year?

Does anyone know if he's had any bad knee injuries while at Madrid as his running style when at full speed seems like he's almost limping slightly. Or maybe it's just my eyes deceiving me a bit.

Maybe is just simply because he has grown older?

Kane is never the Kane 3 years back when he was doing those sprinting.

 

[SpartanSpur]

He's clearly nowhere near 100% match fitness but the quality is still lurking there. As we've seen many times with Kane when he's working his way back from a long layoff that the half a yard of pace you lose when at 70/80% can make a big difference at this level. For example if he was 100% the WH defender probably doesn't get close enough to push him.

He also made some fantastic runs that weren't picked out last night and would have had him through on goal. The one time he was found in the box he forced the OG. This Europa group phase should be very handy for him, much like the qualifiers helped Ndombele force his way in. I'm still confident he'll be a significant upgrade on the right and that trident with Kane and Son could be devastating. Teams will need 5 at the back by default to try and contain them.

 

[Rosco1984]

Interesting stance...so now we're not allowed to critique players performances on a game by game basis, doesn't that make any post review entirely pointless in that case?

Explain why he was rubbish.... I saw him get in good positions link up well create chances and keep the ball in tight spaces under pressure. I didn't see him give the ball away or not track his man or miss sitters? He didn't loo completely razor sharp and dangerous but in what way was it rubbish? I have seen Bergwijn and Lucas who are both good players have much worse games when fully fit and I still wouldn't have said they were rubbish.

 

[thebenjamin]

I expect he’ll round into peak fitness somewhere in the next few weeks. But this needs to be managed slowly to avoid more injury problems. Being stiff after 60’ in a game no one got out of 2nd gear is a bit of a worry. Dont think he’ll start Monday. Maybe 30 minutes tops

Don't reckon he'll start in the league for a long time. Nowhere near it at the moment. You couldn't play him in a wide position where he needs to track

 

[oohaahedgar]

He looked like exactly what he is, a world class player starting his first game in months. That's it.

 

[Kingellesar]

Don't reckon he'll start in the league for a long time. Nowhere near it at the moment. You couldn't play him in a wide position where he needs to track

Agree with this, which is why I am happy we are in the Europa, I think he will play the next 2 Europa games, as well as a couple sub appearances before the City game in November. That gives him 4 weeks to get upto match fitness...ready for our toughest period of the season.

 

[Spurrific]

He literally just looked like a player who hasnt played much football, thats it.

Since February he's played a grand total of 90 minutes for Madrid and I think one game for Wales. Anybody would look off-the-pace. He seems a bit conscious of not getting injured as well, which is fair enough

 

[StanSpur]

you cannot judge Bale until a run of 6-7 games at least. It won't be until December until we see what he is capable of delivering for us this season. He will either add a much needed boost to the first team as we go into the latter rounds of the cups or, he will be a quality sub that can help things along through the back end of the season. It is impossible to know how it will pan out at this stage after so little football in the past 10 months and his age, but i have high hope we will get some of those Bale moments we enjoyed back at the lane at some point this season,

 

[tommo84]

Thought he did alright. Linked up well with Doherty, and looked able to play on the shoulder and make runs behind the defence. They didn’t to come to fruition because our whole team (but Lamela especially) seemed to delay passes which allowed LASK’s ridiculously high line to play our forwards offside. That was happening to Bale, Vinícius, Lucas and Lamela himself throughout the game, and Son/Dele too when they came on.

Did he look fully fit? No. But if, as is likely, he’s only about 80-90% fit then I’d say he moved better and looked sharper than most players who are trying to build up fitness.

 

[WiganSpur]

He was rubbish by anyone's standards, if Dele (or insert another scapegoat) dropped that kind of performance they'd be pitchforks out, no need to give him a pass just because of his reputation, call it for what it is.

But understandably so he's not fit so I expect him to get much better as the season progresses.

I actually don't think he was horrendous. Looked slow as a carthorse sure but still showed a few decent touches here and there.

He was completely blowing after he made a few runs. To me that's a decent sign as he's only 31 and it must be down to fitness rather than any natural decline.

 

[DJS]

Ginola played some of his best football with us in his thirties.

Class is permanent, Bale just needs to get fit.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

He's produced little moment of absolute brilliance, that skill in the west ham game to get him through on goal and last night the nutmeg, the free kick delivery and when he lined the player up 1 on 1 and then powerfully ran past him that's all top top class.

You can tell he's only 80% fit and once he gets fully match fit he will be blistering, honestly him Son Kane will be absolutely frightening, it will make us go into any match thinking we can win.

 

[bubble07]

Please don't try to defend this and just accept his performance for what it was.



And I didn't compare him to Dele, I said a player like Dele who is always scapegoated which is the point I'm making you can critique such players like Bale because of their reputation, he is a world class, experienced player who has won the CL 4 times so the bar is always going to be high thus the expectation is higher. That doesn't mean I think he's shit, that just means I think he was poor last night, having said that it's totally understandable because he hasn't played that much football so I also expect him to get better, that's not a pointless statement...this is kind of how reviews work.

This site has some hilarious double standards on certain players.

Fair points but one of the lost positions was an assist

 

[spursfan77]

Needs another 3/4 weeks of match practice like every other professional footballer returning from injury or pre season, as we see with Kane it can take a few weeks to ramp up after an injury.

Still so surreal watching him out there for us again.

Yep. He even said he was treating this like a preseason. If some can’t see how good he still is from when he was on the ball or with his vision of pass, which he didn’t used to have then you’re only making yourself look pretty foolish. It’s pretty obvious he’s still quality but needs a load of games to get up to speed. The PL isn’t Spain either. Every game is hard and physical. It’s a different kettle of fish for him now.

 

[mil1lion]

So do we think he'll be our main set piece taker now? We don't really have one since Eriksen left. Son takes a mean corner on the left, maybe Reguilon on the right leaving Bale in the box for his heading abilities. He did put a nice cross in from a wide free kick which Sanchez just couldn't reach. I'm not sure if he shouldn't be in the box for those ones though and have Reguilon take them and Son for the wide left free kicks. Have Bale take direct free kicks to the right and Kane to the left when they're in shooting range.

 

[KikoSpurs]

Looked rusty but can only gets better with minutes under his belt. The quality is still there.

Two things that I noticed:

1. Doherty or whoever is playing as RB needs to release the ball sooner. I felt that sometimes he was ready to make a run but the ball didn't come.

2. He is controlling his runs, not sure if it is the lack of match fitness or afraid of an injury.