Is Bale The Best?
It is a question now being debated more than ever by pundits
and fans alike. Is Tottenham Hotspur winger Gareth Bale one of the best players
in the world? There is no doubt that the 23 year old Welsh winger has been in
outstanding form for his club recently and has also come up big for his country
this season as well and this has got people pondering about whether he is or
isn’t one of the top players in the world just now and whether or not he’ll be
a Spurs player next season. That last question would be better off being
discussed at the end of the season in my opinion, but I see no reason why the
first one cannot be talked about for the time being. He has in particular been
compared mostly to Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi and I like some others
find trying to compare those two hard enough because of how different they both
are on the pitch, but the main reason why they are compared to one another so
much is because of how key they have been to Real Madrid and Barcelona’s
successes in recent years.
Having given it a
fair bit of thought, I’m also struggling to compare Bale with Messi mainly
because of things such as playing in different positions and playing for
completely different clubs, but I think I’m able to do a much better comparison
between Bale and Ronaldo given that they both play mainly on the wing and
they’ve both got plenty of Premier League experience as well. It can sometimes
be very hard to compare certain players because quite often they are being
compared on several different things, a lot of the time people look for things
like goals and assists to be the difference between players and sometimes it’s
things like who has won more trophies or who has achieved more for their
country, the options feel endless at times. If I were comparing career totals
between these two for goals, assists, honours, international caps and career
earnings, then Ronaldo would win hands down mainly because he’s got a 3 and a
half year head start over Bale and he’s 4 and a half years older than him as
well. But instead I’m going to try and compare them over what they’ve done so
far this season, what I think their best attributes are and whether or not
they’ve got the potential to get even better.
This weekend saw man of the match performances from both
players in their respective games. Bale scored twice as Tottenham beat
Newcastle United 2-1 at White Hart Lane on Saturday afternoon while Ronaldo
scored a hat-trick and provided an assist for Karim Benzema in Madrid’s 4-1
victory against Sevilla on Saturday night at The Bernabeu. The Portugese winger
managed all of this in an hour as he was substituted midway through the second
half presumably to keep him fresh for the visit of his old side Manchester
United on Wednesday when The Champions League returns this coming week. I
watched both games and was thoroughly entertained by the way both players managed
to be so instrumental in earning 3 points for their respective teams and once
again get almost everyone talking about how good they are. While it is easy
enough to just praise two players, credit also has to go to their teammates for
the work they do that allows them to play the way they do. Both Ronaldo and
Bale have similar positive and negative traits. Positives include both being
very clever on the ball and are very pacy and can often be seen making runs
down the wing even when a match is reaching its climax. Negatives include
perhaps trying to maybe do too much sometimes and both have developed a bit of
a reputation when it comes to going down to ground too easily after receiving a
tackle from an opposition player. While we obviously don’t like to see their
negatives on show very often despite it giving us something else to talk about
it is clear that their positive points are what is going to be key in making
sure their respective clubs achieve some sort of big success at the end of the
season.
To conclude, I am going to say that currently I think
Ronaldo is the better player than Bale because despite the similarities, he’s
given a bit more to Real Madrid this season than Bale has to Tottenham, but
that might just be because they are a side who have just a bit more quality
than the North Londoners. But at only 23 years of ages, Gareth Bale is
certainly going to get much better and wherever he plays his football for the
next few years, it’s going to be a real treat for fans to see him grow and
fulfil his potential. And who knows, maybe in a few years time with a bit more
experience Bale could become as good if not better than Ronaldo, but for the
time being, the wingers focus should be entirely on making sure Tottenham have
a good end to the season in league and European competition.
Premier League –
Weekend Review
Manchester City did themselves no favours in the title race
as they suffered a 3-1 loss at relegation battlers Southampton on Saturday. So
while this was no doubt a huge win for The Saints, City would later regret not
being able to come away with anything from the match as their rivals Manchester
United defeated Everton 2-0 at Old Trafford on the Sunday and increased the gap
at the top to 12 points. Some people are beginning to admit that they feel the
title race is over and that it’s just too big a points difference between
United and City. I’d still like to think it isn’t over, but if Man City don’t
start performing to a higher level on a more consistent basis and continue
failing to pick up key points, then United will be celebrating much earlier
than initially expected. Not only are they in danger of losing the title, but 2nd
place appears to be under threat as Chelsea and Tottenham closed the gap on
City to 4 and 5 points respectively after wins over Wigan Athletic and
Newcastle. Spurs initially took 3rd place after beating The Magpies 2-1 in the
early kick off on Saturday, but a 4-1 win for Chelsea later in the day put them
back into 3rd and left Wigan in more trouble at the wrong end of the table.
It would be fair to say only two teams fighting for survival
had a good weekend. Southampton being one after their victory over the
champions, and Aston Villa are the other as they ended the weekend just outside
of the bottom 3 with a 2-1 win over West Ham United at Villa Park on Sunday.
Villa seem to have developed a somewhat bad reputation as of late which
involves giving away late goals and costing themselves a victory, and a late
West Ham goal looked to make some people at the ground a little shaky, but they
managed to hold on this time and pick up the precious 3 points. The same couldn’t
be said for the other teams around them as Reading just fell short of a
comeback in a 2-1 loss at Stoke City and Queens Park Rangers suffered a 4-1
thumping away at Swansea City which leaves them now 7 points from safety.
The other results from the weekend included a 1-0 away win
for Arsenal at Sunderland. Santi Cazorla scored the only goal of the game to
move The Gunners up to 5th and maintain pressure on London rivals Tottenham and
Chelsea, and the final game on Saturday was a 0-0 draw between Norwich City and
Fulham who both sit 6 points from safety in the lower half of the table. The
last game of The Premier League weekend takes place tonight at Anfield as
Liverpool host West Bromwich Albion. The two sides have already met twice this
season, once in the league and again in The Capital One Cup. Liverpool won the
cup tie 2-1 but West Brom won the league tie back in August 3-0 and it helped
set them on their way to a great first half of the season. Both teams are still
in with a decent chance of a Europa League place and they’ll surely be determined
to take advantage of that with a win tonight. I predict a close tie, but I
think tonight is Liverpool’s night and they will get the 3 points. Enjoy the
game.
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