Tag Archives: Gareth Bale

Europa: Bale's horrific injury as Spurs stumble to a draw

Three cheers to Chelsea for their win over Rubin Kazan, a comfortable 3-1 victory that should sustain them well on the second leg. The news for Spurs, however, is a much more down-beat as they labored to a

2-2 draw with FC Basel, making their second leg much trickier. A further concern has to be Aaron Lennon, who returned from his hamstring injury for this game but had to be taken off at 24′, apparently having re-aggravated the same injury. It was 0-0 at the time, so it’s not as if this was a strategic decision to conserve him for the Sunday match with Everton. Except for Lennon, their key players played the entire match. After a match that they had to fight tooth and claw for a full 90′ plus 5′ of stoppage time, only to come away with a disappointing draw, Spurs might be feeling a little depleted. Chelsea went ahead early on a goal from Torres and seems to have had a more leisurely match as Rubin Kazan never really could make it into much of a match. Chelsea will probably be fine for hosting Sunderland on Sunday. The bad news for Spurs, however, goes from bad to worse.

In stoppage time, Gareth Bale went down with a late ankle injury serious enough to get him stretchered off. It looked serious when it happened, and, given the importance of the game (Spurs fielded a full-strength squad), it’s highly unlikely that he was merely going into histrionics to earn some rest. I’d post the video but it’s enough to turn one’s stomach; Bale’s leg gets turned a bit by a Basel defender just enough to see Bale turn his right ankle so far that the outside of his foot seems to touch the ground while his leg is still perpendicular to the ground. Just take a moment right now to see if you can calmly and slowly flex your own ankle that far. Now picture it happening to you suddenly with the full weight of your body moving at speed, forcing it to happen. Ugly stuff. I’m not even going to speculate on how this affects the Prem League just yet. Too soon for that. Bale will go in for a scan on Friday. For now, just wish the lad well. As much as I want to overtake Spurs, I want them at full-strength when we do, and, in what is becoming a bit of a refrain for me, I don’t want to beat anyone thanks to injuries to their players. This could be disastrous for Spurs—Bale will almost certainly miss a few matches, including Sunday with Everton. If I’m a Spurs fan, I’d happily trade a loss or two for Bale to be able come back sooner rather than later. Even as an Arsenal fan who is supposed to detest all things Tottenham, I want to see him come back. I’ll even go so far as to say God speed, Gareth.

Whither Gareth Bale?

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After a series of performances strong enough to garner Mr. Bale several MOTM designations in the new year, recent fixtures have seen the man fall back to Earth. Put to rest, at least for now, are the comparisons to Ronaldo, comparisons this writer never quite bought into. Such has been his fall, in fact, that Spurs must be heaving sighs of relief for the international break after results that probably inspire more than a few dry heaves. In fact, since defeating us March 3rd, Spurs have won only once more and gone on to drop three straight matches. Yes, there are eleven players who play at any given moment, but for as much as Bale might deserve credit for driving Spurs’ performance, his own recent drop in form might just be the single most-important factor that has undermined the team in the last few weeks, giving new legitimacy to the accusation that Spurs are little more than a one-man team.

In their most recent Prem League games, a loss away against Liverpool and a lost at home against Fulham, Bale’s form has most certainly slipped. He scored in neither and notched just the one assist against Liverpool. According to whoscored.com, he managed a very good but not great 7.7 against Liverpool, and against Fulham, a very pedestrian 6.6. That 7.7 might be very good, but it represents a significant drop from previous matches, a run of scores that range from a perfect 10 against West Ham to a low of 7.5 against Lyon. To fall out of that range suggests that Bale might be running on fumes just when his team needs him most. Unless Adebayor can be tricked into thinking he’s about to sign a new contract, or if Defoe, who hasn’t scored since December, can find some kind of form, Spurs are desperately short of options. Their only other scoring threat, Aaron Lennon, is out due to injury. In fact, the team’s best plan can probably best be summarized as “hope Bale doesn’t play for Wales so that he can rest up”.

However, even this plan has its flaws. Bale didn’t play in the second leg against Inter and should have been fresh enough to play against Fulham. However, he, like too many of his teammates, put in a listless performance against a lower side that they really should have defeated. They went into the game knowing we had beaten Swansea, so where was the urgency? It seems like they have taken a top four-finish for granted just as we’ve finally put together a bit of momentum, enough, perhaps to wrest that position back.

Fatigue, whether it’s physical or mental, may have just risen up at the worst time for Bale. He’s dragged this team up to where it is, and there’s little to say by way to taking the credit from him. Whether he’s believed the headlines and now presumes his own greatness or struggles under the burden those headlines have created, he’s seen his form dip precipitously. From the looks of it, he’ll face Scotland on Friday, and Wales just may need him to play a full 90 because they sit in 5th place in Group One, just a point above Scotland and with a -8 goal differential.

I certainly don’t hope for Bale to get injured, but I do believe he will emerge the worse for wear, bearing the double-burdens of trying to carry both club and country to victory. I, for one, hope for a close-fought, back-and-forth match between Scotland and Wales.

Banana-Fan Found and Charged

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Thomas Flint will appear in Highbury Corner Magistrates Court to answer charges of throwing a missile–a banana–on the field during the Spurs-Arsenal match on March 3rd. While it’s still too early to condemn the man, I do hope, should the evidence and testimony be clear enough, that Mr. Flint not only be banned from all Arsenal matches in the future, but he should also be forced to eat nothing but bananas for a week while wearing naught but a garbage bag around his waist so that he will have to swim in his own defecations until he is deemed fit to re-enter society.
Of course, after that, Mr. Enfield, should he be convicted–aside from the standard bans, fines, and what-have you–will have to draw from a hat in order to select his new team of choice to replace Arsenal. There will be five slips of paper, all bearing the name of Carshalton Athletic, currently in last place in the Ryman Isthmian League. Should the good people of Carshalton Athletic deem Mr. Enfield unworthy of their club’s tradition, he shall henceforth be sentenced to having Bale’s mug tattooed on his own forehead.

I kid. Let’s wait for the actual trial. If it turns out that Enfield did in fact throw a banana, and he did in fact use “threatening, abusive, or insulting words”, he shall be shunned and mocked for being a former Gooner (in addition to the actual penalties). Of course, if it turns out that Enfield had simply brought a banana to fortify himself with potassium only to see a fellow fan inadvertently slap it out of his hands while initiating The Wave, I will cheerfully apologize. We shall just have to wait until the Court delivers its decision, I suppose.

Please, sir, I want some…more?

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Ah, Olivier. You scored so much and so well for Montpelier that you convinced us that you’d replace Van Persie himself. Well, we convinced ourselves of that and insisted that you live up to the billing. In retrospect, a bit unfair of us, I suppose. However, even by a more-objective standard, as a stand-alone, I think you’d have to agree it’s been a bit of a let-down to this point. The transition from Ligue 1 to the Prem can be a tricky one, and nine goals is a decent number, but I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds when I say we expected a little more, if not in actual goals but in overall play.

Okay. End of fake “letter to the player” format.

Now, firstly, the goals. Last year, Giroud scored 21 goals in 36 Ligue 1 matches. Not bad. However, he’s only scored nine in 27 Prem games, a drop of nearly half–from 0.58 goals per game to 0.33. What’s more, four of these goals have been what I’ve called “superfluous”–extra goals that do nothing to change the outcome of a game: the 5th and 6th goals of the 7-3 win over Newcastle, and the 2nd and 5th goals in the 5-1 win over West Ham. Even if I’m being a little harsh in counting that 2nd goal as superfluous, the larger point remains: not enough goals, and not enough game-changing goals. Teams need strikers who are more than just prolific; they need strikers with an exquisite sense of timing. By comparison, most of Gareth Bale’s goals for Spurs, for example, have been vital to securing draws, if not actual wins. I do believe that Giroud will adjust the the Prem in time, and I respect that the adjustment has been all the more difficult given the boots he was signed to fill, but the ugly truth is that he just hasn’t been good enough for the role we need him to play.

However, my concern arises from issues beyond his stats–my concern arises from how his presence changes how we play. While it’s true that critics rightly take Arsenal to task for trying to pass the ball into goal, this doesn’t mean that we should accommodate them. I worry that Giroud’s reputation has deceived us into doing just this, not that this is Giroud’s fault. When he came on, we were told of his size and physical style and strength in the air. While I do believe that these elements are a part of his repertoire (I can’t call it an actual arsenal yet because it’s just not a dangerous-enough tool set to earn that term), we haven’t seen it yet even as we abuse its availability. All too often, and especially when we fall behind, we end up hoofing the ball forward and hoping for Giroud to do something with it. Never mind the difficulty of placing such a pass or the aesthetic considerations. It’s asking a lot of a striker to bring a ball down and turn to shoot. Giroud hasn’t shown that he’s capable of doing this, at least not as often as we ask him to. Second balls present a similar issue–as nice as it would be to see him trap the ball and lay it off to Podolski or Walcott, it just hasn’t happened. The man has two assists in the Prem. Yes, he would have more but for some poor finishes, but the deft little flicks that have become his only real calling-card are becoming a little too-too, as if he’s afraid to shoot and is playing hot potato instead of soccer. The bigger issue, though, is how it distorts our attack. Instead of dominating possession in order to generate high-percentage shots, we end up settling for too much of the hoof-and-hope, with all too little to show for it.

Giroud seems all too aware of the problems he’s having so far, as each fluffed shot and grimace suggest. He’s feeling the pressure, much as he did at the season’s beginning, to produce. He went so far as to step in front of a teammate to take a ball out of the air, as he did to Walcott towards the end of the Spurs game–he literally stepped in front of Theo, who seemed surprised and then upset as he watched Giroud attempt to twist around to launch a half-volley that sailed harmlessly into the crowd. A goal would have been wondrous, but I might have settled at this point for a shot that was simply on-frame.

Looking down the road, I still believe that Giroud has a role to play for us–his on-field relationship and link-up play with both Walcott and Podolski has shown moments of potential and has produced some great goals of the sort that, in time, would probably become more frequent and more timely. If Giroud can regain some kind of form over the remainder of the season, I might even go so far as to say that I wouldn’t be upset if we don’t make dramatic moves for another striker come summer (as long we do make moves elsewhere). I’m not placing responsibility for a top-four finish solely on him, but we need some goals in coming weeks, or other options will have to be pursued. Bonne chance, Olivier, bonne chance.