Bale

[texan]

Mar 6, 2014 10:21:21 GMT @storm said:

I was hoping to see a cohesive team performace last night and I didn't get that. Bale was outstanding granted, but do you think it's a good thing that we are so reliant on him? What are we going to do when he isn't there?

Well on last night's evidence, pass the ball around well and create four good chances to score in 20 mins!

In all seriousness however I do understand your sentiment about the need for a more balanced play and not be too reliant on one individual, this is a more than fair concern and we've seen it a number of times over the years with Wales, but I honestly don't think its an issue on this occasion. If Bale was dominating ball time over the 90 mins and either constantly losing possession cheaply or, like Giggs, making runs and creating spaces which the other 9 outfield players were failing to pick up (due to their lack of quality/ability) then we'd be in trouble. However he was supported well on the whole last night, players were seeing his passes and making the right runs, granted the finishing should have been better on a few occasions (i.e. Robson-Kanu and Allen) however the simple fact they were there at all speaks volumes about their ability as individuals and their cohesion as a team, and gives me enough confidence that Bale's dominance isn't a negative.

Would we have won without him? Possibly not with that team, however if Bale hadn't been there we would have been set up differently anyway so its impossible to say. All we have to go on are the previous Bale-less matches under Coleman, the most recent of which we've won and drawn and there are far more urgent concerns to be addressed before worrying about Bale's dominance over his team. Portugal would miss Ronaldo, France would Benzema, Brazil would Neymar, Bosnia would Djeko, Argentina would Messi...the list goes on.

We have a good team that, when on song, play some great stuff and can pose a challenge for most teams in pots 2-6, add Bale and Ramsey to that mix and we have the potential to be elevated to a team that are a serious threat to teams in pot 1. I think under the current circumstances this is something to embrace rather than worry about.

[abwales]

We wouldn't have set up differently with Bale not there. Williams would have played in his position and we wouldn't have won the game.

[welshiron]

Bale was there we won and won pretty well,

If Bale wasn't there on another day then maybe Ramsey would be so fuck the what ifs, we won and are now 4 unbeaten

[texan]

Mar 6, 2014 13:08:14 GMT abwales said:

We wouldn't have set up differently with Bale not there. Williams would have played in his position and we wouldn't have won the game.

Shape/formation-wise perhaps not, but personnel-wise and mentality-wise almost certainly.

No Bale would have seen a much more conservative display, and probably one designed around getting the ball to Vokes as often as possible. Defensive personnel could have been different, Taylor might have been preferred on the right to Gunter with no Bale ahead of him, so Davies might have started on the left in his place which could potentially have affected our defensive shape for Iceland's goal. Any and all of these would have drastically affected the outcome, we could have nicked it, we could have controlled the game but played out a stalemate, alternatively we could have been tonked, who knows!

There are too many variables to be that sure of what is pure speculation...basically we don't know. All we can do is work with what we know has actually happened in matches without Bale under Coleman.

[flynnfan]

Mar 6, 2014 12:11:17 GMT llannerch said:

What a depressing thread this has turned into. Bale was unplayable at times last night. Aron Gunnarsson admitted as much in his post-match interview. I bet the Romanian team looked disjointed when Haji went off on one, or Bulgaria when Stoichkov did. That is what gifted players do. It is the other players' responsibility to maintain shape and respond to his brilliance. To suggest that Bale should tone it down a bit because we look less like a team when he's playing like he did is a bit Don Howe if you ask me.

this is it. Bale is our Hagi (Romania), our Stoichkov (Bulgaria), our Zahovic (Slovenia)

If he leads us to qualification I really don't give a fuck how selfish he is on the pitch. Better than being selfish off it, like Giggs ('the most selfish man in the world' according to his brothers missus)

[yanto]

I really do assume any criticism of bale is very tongue in cheek/lol. I think the team are playing well - we have matched and beaten teams without Bale so time for a new angle.

[quetzal]

7 mins left and Madrid are walking it against Levante 3 nil up. It doesn't look like Bale is doing much but we have to be careful. He has a zone where he plays. He might get switched from left to right or viceversa but its not like Spurs where he could go anywhere on the pitch to get the ball. Cristiano Ronaldo is the only one allowed to play that role. But Bale is doing a job in a winning team

[flynnfan]

Bale is doing a job in a winning team
---------
This is what some people don't seem to get. Same with the people slagging Rambo over the past few seasons.

[Deleted]

He should be playing like he was against Iceland every week (with a little less selfishness!). His role at Madrid doesn't give him much scope for that, that I have seen anyway. A shame, but as long as he continues to make driving runs on the international stage I can live with him having a reduced role for his club. The omens were good against Iceland, if he continues in that vein club level should not be a concern for Wales, although obviously winning leagues and champions leagues won't hurt either!

[abwales]

Cannot wait for the champions league draw on Friday and the clasico on Sunday. A huge weekend for Bale and hopefully a fantastic final few months of the season. No injury for 10 or so games now which is good to see and he has played very well recently.

[Deleted]

Wales last representative in the competition (not including Giggs as he has retired).
Interestingly Belgium have 5 representatives left, whilst the rest of our upcoming group have none. Does this give us an edge? Possibly not. A good indicator of our relative strengths ahead of the forthcoming campaign?

[alarch]

www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/gareth-bale-value-for-money-you-bet-9206441.html

Leading assist provider in La Liga - impressive stuff. You have to say that Bale has played a blinder, by playing the role of provider to Ronaldo. It's taken the heat off Bale, but in the meantime has allowed him to prove his worth incrementally. He must be appreciated in the dressing room and by the management for his team ethos mentality. Not something that can be said of all Galacticos down the years.

[ladotelli]

He's certainly staying down to earth and not falling into the trap of turning into a right diva like many Galaticos have before him.

[abwales]

The upsurge in Bale's performances recently is mostly down to the other players actually trusting him and involving him in build up play. In the past everything went down the left which left him isolated. Now, he's even getting defenders blasting long balls up to him so he can do his thing and set up goals.

People wondered whether there was room for both Bale & Ronaldo, they're quickly learning that there is and in recent games they've been lethal. Against Schalke Bale basically assisted all 3 goals with help from some Ronaldo excellence. Against Malaga Bale passed to Ronaldo, Ronaldo scored and then Ronaldo could've scored 2 within 2 minutes of the goal from Bale crosses. The goals have recently dried up for him, but the Spanish media aren't mentioning it because they see what's happening. A deadly duo is forming.

I've not looked forward to a game this much for a long time, roll on Sunday and roll on Dortmund, Bale has a huge chance of being part of Madrid history. These next few months could be epic!

[Tim P]

Yeah, it's safe to say that Ramos is now happy to trust Bale…

bleacherreport.com/articles/1972599-sergio-ramos-cant-believe-the-goal-gareth-bale-has-just-scored-for-real-madrid

[quetzal]

Bale not very good today but Ronaldo was just as bad!!! 4 out of 10. The commentators from Mexico all agreed he's had a better season than Neymar but also agreed that Neymar played better than Bale today

[toshfan]

Not SuperBale's evening but I think that the game will be remembered for the three penalties. Lots of disagreement about them in the studio and on twitter. My view for what it is worth:

Real Madrid pen - a foul but contact outside of the area. Wrong decision but so hard in real time;
First Barcelona pen - caught the attackers ankle making it a foul and, based on position, a denial of a goal scoring opportunity. Lots arguing the sending off is harsh but it was correct in law;
Second Barcelona pen - 100% correct and I would have been furious with the two defenders were I the gaffer.

[Deleted]

Barcelona had him well shackled tonight, bit disappointing as these are the games Bale needs to be delivering in against the best defences.

That being said, again he didn't see a great deal of the ball-although he looks much more integrated into the team now than he did before.

For what it's worth, I thought the 3rd penalty was highly dubious and the context raises a lot of questions about the direction the game is going in. It stands to reason that if you try and run between two players there will be contact of some sort-does this mean that they are obliged to move out of the attackers way because if they don't the attacker will make sure it's a penalty by forcing their hand? I thought what contact there was was not enough to make anyone fall over. Seems to be he way of it now, even if the contact is minimal & unintentional and the attacker has every opportunity o stay on their feet it seems to be considered a stonewall penalty.

If it was a Wales game I can safely say I would feel very fortunate if that had been given to us & absolutely fucking seething if a penalty had been given against us in that manner.

[abwales]

Lets be honest, he was terrible. The only 2 good moments he had were running from deep through the middle. Both produced great opportunities and he should have done that so much more. I lost count the amount of times he gave them goal kicks. Its not like the Barca defenders were that great against him, he just kept having horrible touches. If Jese was fit he would no doubt have been taken off. I'm surprised he lasted the entire game.

So far this season he has played Barca twice and Atletico 4 times. The 6 biggest games he has ever played and in total he has 1 assist from those games. He needs to start performing in these games. He performed in the big games at spurs, the quicker he does it at Madrid the better.

[quetzal]

Mar 24, 2014 0:07:44 GMT abwales said:

Lets be honest, he was terrible. The only 2 good moments he had were running from deep through the middle. Both produced great opportunities and he should have done that so much more. I lost count the amount of times he gave them goal kicks. Its not like the Barca defenders were that great against him, he just kept having horrible touches. If Jese was fit he would no doubt have been taken off. I'm surprised he lasted the entire game.

So far this season he has played Barca twice and Atletico 4 times. The 6 biggest games he has ever played and in total he has 1 assist from those games. He needs to start performing in these games. He performed in the big games at spurs, the quicker he does it at Madrid the better.

Thats why i gave him 4 out of 10

[Deleted]

Mar 24, 2014 0:07:44 GMT abwales said:

Lets be honest, he was terrible. The only 2 good moments he had were running from deep through the middle. Both produced great opportunities and he should have done that so much more. I lost count the amount of times he gave them goal kicks. Its not like the Barca defenders were that great against him, he just kept having horrible touches. If Jese was fit he would no doubt have been taken off. I'm surprised he lasted the entire game.

So far this season he has played Barca twice and Atletico 4 times. The 6 biggest games he has ever played and in total he has 1 assist from those games. He needs to start performing in these games. He performed in the big games at spurs, the quicker he does it at Madrid the better.

It's easy to say he should drive through the middle more but when you look at how Madrid are set up you can see why he never gets those opportunities like he did for Spurs and Wales. There were a number of different factors that combined tonight to ensure Bale had a poor game and thy weren't totally down to him. For a start he seemed to be covering the defence a lot, when the ball came down his channel with Barcelona on the back foot he was often not up with the play and in a withdrawn position. The ball (as usual) seemed to gravitate towards the left and some of the passes that came bales way when he was in position were diabolical. Then there is Madrids approach which was primarily to counter leaving Barcelona with most of the possession thus limiting bales opportunities

It does make me wonder though when he goes on those lung busting runs from deep that real don't set themselves up to work more situations like that for him. He seems a bit wasted really, like buying a top of the range Ferrari and only using it for the weekly shopping run to the supermarket 5 miles down the road.

[ladotelli]

Bale was terrible tonight but they had a game plan to stop him and Di Maria playing although Di Maria played far far better than he Bale did. It takes time to get used to another league, some of Bales best performances over here came in the big games for Spurs. The problem isn't the fact that he is not a big game player because we know he is.

[Deleted]

Mar 24, 2014 2:11:48 GMT @storm said:

Mar 24, 2014 0:07:44 GMT abwales said:

Lets be honest, he was terrible. The only 2 good moments he had were running from deep through the middle. Both produced great opportunities and he should have done that so much more. I lost count the amount of times he gave them goal kicks. Its not like the Barca defenders were that great against him, he just kept having horrible touches. If Jese was fit he would no doubt have been taken off. I'm surprised he lasted the entire game.

So far this season he has played Barca twice and Atletico 4 times. The 6 biggest games he has ever played and in total he has 1 assist from those games. He needs to start performing in these games. He performed in the big games at spurs, the quicker he does it at Madrid the better.

It's easy to say he should drive through the middle more but when you look at how Madrid are set up you can see why he never gets those opportunities like he did for Spurs and Wales. There were a number of different factors that combined tonight to ensure Bale had a poor game and thy weren't totally down to him. For a start he seemed to be covering the defence a lot, when the ball came down his channel with Barcelona on the back foot he was often not up with the play and in a withdrawn position. The ball (as usual) seemed to gravitate towards the left and some of the passes that came bales way when he was in position were diabolical. Then there is Madrids approach which was primarily to counter leaving Barcelona with most of the possession thus limiting bales opportunities

It does make me wonder though when he goes on those lung busting runs from deep that real don't set themselves up to work more situations like that for him. He seems a bit wasted really, like buying a top of the range Ferrari and only using it for the weekly shopping run to the supermarket 5 miles down the road.

That's exactly how i saw it.
Ronaldo's narcissism wrecked bale's chance to impress last night.

[abwales]

Nothing stopped Bale from standing out yesterday. Not the tactics and not the teams obsession with going down the left. He just didn't perform.

[Deleted]

Mar 24, 2014 13:37:33 GMT abwales said:

Nothing stopped Bale from standing out yesterday. Not the tactics and not the teams obsession with going down the left. He just didn't perform.

You can't stand out if you don't have the ball (no-one ever wins MOTM based on movement alone) and he never really saw much of it and when he did it was often in positions where he couldn't hurt Barcelona so his opportunities to stand out amounted to 3 opportunities to run at the Barcelona defence, one of which resulted in an excellent chance for Benzema that could have mitigated Barcelonas winning goal.

So on the balance of things, for Bale to have stood out he would have had to make the absolute most of what little he had- that would have taken a player with skills far beyond even Messi, to make a telling contribution from 3 or 4 dribbles. I do agree that his touch was poor at times and Barca tracked him well. But instead of giving him more opportunities to address this he got less. He's a top top player but you have to get him on the ball as much as possible to for him to show it.

[Tim P]

Worth remembering: Ronaldo scored two goals in his first eight Clasicos.

[Deleted]

To be fair to barca they played him well not only was he tracking alba's runs a lot of the time iniesta seemed to attack a lot down the channel bale plays in,yes bale's touch wasn't great but he did a hell of a lot of defensive work closing people down!!The run when he dropped deep to pick up the ball he ran past iniesta and a few others and left them for dead before slipping the ball to benzema,wasn't a good performance by bale but ronaldo was poor as well,just think barca did a good job on them both!!

[abwales]

He didn't track back enough clearly. The first goal came down his side after Carvajal was sucked in to the ball. The replay actually showed him looking at Iniesta with all the space in the World just before he scored. All game he only tracked back when Alba went forward, otherwise he just let Modric, Alonso & Carvajal do the cleaning up against the best midfield in the World. There's a reason Barca played Iniesta on the left, the 2 full back positions are the weakest spots for Madrid and the wingers are lazy bastards.

[ladotelli]

Mar 24, 2014 15:10:41 GMT Tim P said:

Worth remembering: Ronaldo scored two goals in his first eight Clasicos.

Yep, a great stat. 

It takes a long time to get used to another league, he has sussed the majority of the division out but it always take longer for him to work out the better teams in La Liga. I wasn't expecting miracles from him at all in this game. First two season he should be judged on his overall performances and so far he has been playing really well. 

[Deleted]

Mar 24, 2014 15:10:41 GMT Tim P said:

Worth remembering: Ronaldo scored two goals in his first eight Clasicos.

i like to entertain the idea of how things would have played out last night without Ronaldo, it was reminiscent of Bale v Iceland where it looks like the players determination to score is their primary concern rather than the team getting the result. I had to laugh when Bale picked up the ball on the right with a chance to run at the Barcelona defence. "Go on son!" I shouted...until I realised it was actually Ronadlo who had come over to Bale's position to pick up the ball.

They did look like a collection of very self centred individuals at times as opposed to Barcelonas team ethic.