Gareth Bale

i agree bale is overhyped...it's actually pretty annoying. but i think he's done far more to deserve hype than aaron ramsey.

I asked a couple of Welsh guys about Ramsay/Bale a year or so ago, and they all said Ramsay was much the better. So we'll see.

Bale is an exciting player, at the moment against certain teams who aren't used to playing against him, leastways.

But to be talked of in terms of world class is ridiculous. He's not even the best left-sided player in the Premier League. Patrick Barclay tweeted last night that he was the second best player in the world after Xavi. That's ridiculous.

Be interested to see how Chelsea deal with him: try Boswinga and go pace against pace, or get Ivan to kick him early and kick him good.

When you think about it Aaron Ramsey is basically a poor man's Justin Edinburgh.

Rafael shut Bale out of the game pretty effectively on Saturday and Rafael is no Maicon. But he's very difficult to play against all the same, but yeah Malouda > Bale for now.

Bale is just pure adrenalin though. Got to like that, grudgingly.

bale a year ago? Well, nothing's changed since then, definitely.

Wilshere's looked good lately, but not as good as bale imo. But at least it's not nonsense to call that one, one way or the other. Ramsay was better than injured, unconfident and out of position bale- so was koncheskey ffs

I think the interesting thing is whether the success of Walcott and the emergence of Bale indicates Clive Woodward's spell at Southmapotn FC was a success, and whether any other teams would be wise to bring him back in.

ramsey has done v little/nothing yet in his career. bale has done not a huge amount but has had two huge performances in big high profile games...as i said, it's overhyped but ramsey will get the same treatment when he rips inter milan apart over two games as well, on the back of a stretch of v v good form.

walcott never developed as a footballer at all at southampton, famously so really. And you dont teach pace.

Bale at just gone 21 is as good as and possibly better than Cristiano Ronaldo was at just gone 21. Admittedly Ronaldo then shot off into the distance straight after the 2006 World Cup.

Wilshere is the most interesting of these players, will start a thread about him later if someone else doesn't. Bale may be hyped but he's already proven himself to be at least a very good player.

Cristiano Ronaldo at 21 led Portugal to a world cup semi-final....no comparison there.

And you dont teach pace.

― cant believe you sb'd me for that (darraghmac), Wednesday, 3 November 2010 12:44 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

First yard is in the head, that's something you can teach.

Yeah but that was sort of the making of him. Obviously Bale isn't anywhere near the quality of post-06 Ronaldo but at this stage of his development he's getting close to pre-WC2006 Ronaldo. And Ronaldo had several more years of regular Premiership football under his belt.

NB I do not actually think Bale will ever be THAT good, given how superhuman Ronaldo's development was after he hit 21.

not to aaron lennon

not usually one to cosign ahh's wild claims but ramsey really is (was, whatever) a terrific footballer and has been ignorantly dismissed here.

Not as good as Bale though. And not really comparable either.

I'm not saying he's not good, just has in no way done enough to be pronounced as better than a first team cl player...

this thread has gone fucking nuts today. yes i obviously believe that it is some conspiracy when people have opinions different to my own ronan. and not because bale has spent most of his career so far (up until about six months ago) looking like a liability who is still often shut out of games by mediocre players (see: rafael at the weekend). woohoo he scored a hatrick against inter when they'd fallen asleep after spurs (incl. bale) were so shiiiit they won the game after like 5 min.

Bale is one of the twenty best left wingers in the world and may one day be the best. But to say he is as good as one of the ten best players of my lifetime like Ronaldo at a similar age is wrong, to live and breathe as Paddy Barcley is even worse.

He still needs to work on his all-round game and being involved for 90 minutes every week. This is where I think Ramsey has the punch on him. Both can defend, both can score beautiful goals and perplex an opposition midfield but Bale relies on VDV or Modric to do the hard graft for a lot of the time while he waits for the opening. Like I said upthread, he reminds me of Pires a lot in this way. (And sure, as he gets more experience and has to spend more time in front of someone like BAE - this will dramatically improve; Pires could get away with it because he had Vieira next to him and Cole behind him). Ramsey has better concentration and better teamwork skills to go with his other abilities.

You are taking it as if I am saying Bale is a bad player or something and I'm really not. I don't believe either are yet World Class but both can get there very quick. Bale is certainly a joy to watch atm and if he keeps improving at this rapid rate then he could be one of the best of his gen.

(Ramsey was a first team CL player! Long before Bale and earlier in life! And then he was Shawcrossed! And I guess Rosicky getting back to full fitness instead of retiring in his recovery didn't help.)

'ignorantly dismissed' how? Pointing out that bale was a shadow of himself a year ago hardly counts as that, i hope, and i don't know that anyone else was much harsher.

Also don't know if regular first team CL player means anything considering it wasn't long ago Lucas was one?

wasnt any good tho?

I don't even believe you believe yourself tbh.

Welsh guys told me Ramsay would be better than Giggs, while Bale was more like a Welsh SWP so but to be honest, I don't think either of them are all that special yet. Still, I've double-winning standards to maintain and am hard to please.

But to say he is as good as one of the ten best players of my lifetime like Ronaldo at a similar age is wrong

Ronaldo at a similar age (before the 2006 World Cup at any rate) wasn't actually one of the ten best players of your or anyone else's lifetime. He got a lot better very very quickly but he was a classic "needs to work on his end product" player for several years.

bale is almost as good as a onefooted ronaldo

Gareth Bale's spectacular performance yesterday was a superb smokescreen for the fact Spurs' other players largely also had superb games

Just give bale his moment, he has impressed on the pitch beyond doubt, not just in the inter games but last season too. It's just needless one eyed stuff to insist an injured player who plays in a diff position anyway, is "better". Ramsey may well be world class in his own time.

Oh I just saw the Lucas bit. Lucas is actually prob one of the best young holding midfielders in the world and proof of how underrated Rafa was in the transfer market.

SWP is the most ridiculous name to have come up so far.

I don't even think Bale is the best player in the Spurs squad fwiw.

xp Yeah but he doesn't play like a proper Brazilian.

Modric >> Bale

Modric >>>>> Ramsey

correct

lucas better than them all obviously,

pacheco better than modric tbf

Lucas > Modric > Bale > Ramsey > Wilshere > Malouda (doesn't understand "passion")

Ivanovic would eat the lot of them.

I quite like Lucas.

quite like him myself but this 'he's a great player you just dont know football' is bollocks imo. He's doesn't do anything well enough to deserve mention yet, and if he has talent he's not yet shown a sustained ability to prove it at liverpool.

malouda is brilliant, wouldnt compare him with bale- dont think he's a winger, he's the left man in a front three at his best. But he's awesome. If bale can get to his level of effectiveness this past year he'll be a real player

says a lot about malouda that he endured a difficult start after arriving with so much hype and fought his way up to playing at such a high level. good thing liverpool didn't win that transfer battle, rafa prob would have ended his career.

malouda and drogba both, and maybe mikel- he's been much improved this season

It's been quite a common feature for Chelsea signings to take a while to get going - I can think of it happening with Drogba, Malouda, Mikel, Essien, Zhirkov, Ivanovic, Ashley Cole, Anelka and perhaps Kalou. Think this will also be the case with Ramires, who has already been written off by fans with shorter memories.

Just about the only player to hit the ground running in the last few years has been Boswinga. Deco started and finished brightly, but was shit in between.

Arsenal players, with the possible exception of Nasri, seem to make a massive initial impact, which makes it all the more noticeable when some of them start to tail off (Vermaelan, Clichy, Arshavin, Eboue, Reyes).

liverpool signings tend to play at a fairly consistent level from the time they join till their transfer to bursapor.

AKA Doing A Ballack

Yeah struggling to think of many recent Chelsea players who made an immediate impact... Anelka maybe?

Took Anelka a while, was used badly by Grant and possibly Scolari (although he scored under Scolari). Certainly wasn't playing anywhere near as expansively as he has under Hiddink/Ancelloti.

A lot of this is to do with the fact we had two shit managers in a row (Grant/Scolari) who couldn't get the best out of anybody.

Alex and Boswinga are possibly the exceptions.

essien took off very well for a central midfielder, i thought?

duff was good quite quickly for chelsea...carvalho?

Essien was typical actually, excellent first few games then went off the pace badly (very much tied to his two awful tackles v Bolton and Liverpool). Took him a while to get his mojo back.

Hadn't really counted those that had been and gone, in which case the key evidence against is Robben, who was incredible for the first three months and then never quite hit those heights again, and when he did, Wes Brown would kick him.

Anyway, back to Bale, one thing that people used to talk about a lot was his skill with a dead ball, and I remember a couple of amazing free kicks in his early days but not much since.

Anyway, back to Lucas - I like him too. It pained me to see them trying to punt him to Stoke in the last window.

with his left only obv