Stoke City 1 Tottenham 2:HARRY REDKNAPP can remember being afraid to put Gareth Bale's name on the team sheet. This time last year the Welshman had played 24 Premier League games for Tottenham Hotspur without ever finishing on the winning side. He was weighed down by the statistic and he was not the only one.
“It was a burden for me,” Redknapp said after watching Bale’s latest master class. “Sir Alex Ferguson said to me: ‘How can you pick him? I couldn’t pick him.’ I’m superstitious, so it was difficult.”
How times have changed. Redknapp now talks about Bale not only being a key member of the Spurs side but also one of the most sought-after players in the world.
“I can’t think of a better left-sided player [in Britain], really,” the Tottenham manager said. “That left foot of his is amazing, he can run all day and he can head it – he’s 6ft 2in. He’s got everything. You couldn’t even put a value on him.”
There would be no shortage of takers after watching his second goal. With the ball close to shoulder height, Bale cocked his left leg and executed a sumptuous volley to spear the ball into the top corner. It was a goal that said everything about his confidence.
Ricardo Fuller equalised after 25 minutes for Stoke after Bale inadvertently gave Spurs the lead when the ball hit him on the face and flew into the net. But after he scored his second there was even a ripple of applause from the Stoke supporters. “It was unbelievable technique,” Redknapp said.
Bale’s first brace in the Premier League, which owed much to the vision of Aaron Lennon, could not have been better timed given the paucity of Tottenham’s attacking options. Spurs, who yesterday confirmed that William Gallas has signed a one-year contract, were missing three of their frontline strikers, although Redknapp believes Jermain Defoe and Roman Pavlyuchenko could return for Wednesday’s Champions League play-off second leg against Swiss side Young Boys. “It’s a big game but so was this,” Redknapp said. “You don’t want your league position to start suffering early on.”
That is exactly Tony Pulis’s concern. Stoke City’s manager has seen his side lose their opening two matches, and next up in the league is a trip to Chelsea, where they were hammered 7-0 in April.
Poor in the first half, Stoke improved after the break and the substitute Tuncay Sanli should have grabbed an equaliser before the late skirmish that saw Robert Huth impede Heurelho Gomes and Jon Walters bundle the ball over the line. The referee, Chris Foy, was perfectly positioned but inexplicably gave neither a foul nor a goal.
Guardian Service
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