Whether you’ve got yourself a season ticket, Lilywhite membership or simply a club mug sitting proudly on your worktop, however far your affiliation sits with Spurs at the moment, you don’t need to financially contribute anything to be a part of Bale-mania.
Like the Payment Protection Insurance you didn’t pay for, Bale-mania is the compulsory bonus that’s come with supporting Tottenham in recent weeks and as he continues to single-handedly haul us towards a top-four finish, who could possibly complain? The more convincing his Ronaldo impression gets, the more we’re all going to benefit, of course.
But for all the incessant boasting and horrendous heart-shaped celebrations whipped out during five-a-side, the positive perks of Bale-mania seem to be perpetually outweighed by the mud opposition fans have slung at us as a result of our membership.
The most common jibe? How gloomy our placing in the league table would look hypothetically in the absence of Gareth Bale’s goalscoring output.
Ah yes, that old chestnut. The one that involves supporters of rival teams drawing up an imaginary league table that accounts for every player in the top division, bar Spurs’ top scorer.
Their own top scorers are allowed in this table though, obviously. For example, arguing where Manchester United would be without Robin van Persie’s 19 league goals is deemed illogical on the premise that it’s, well, Manchester United.
Again, the concept of how much more feeble Arsenal’s season might have been without the 18 goals that Theo Walcott has scored in all competitions so far is irrelevant, presumably because big Olly Giroud would bridge the gap, wouldn’t he?
You can see where this is going.
Given the fact no one else in a Spurs shirt has scored for us over the last four games, it’s hardly any well-kept footballing secret that we’ve been over-reliant on Bale’s recent moments of magic. Likewise, the impotence/non-existence of the side’s strike force has left few under any illusions over how well-timed the ex-Southampton man’s hot run of form in front of goal has been.
But these continuous barbs in the media over where Tottenham would be without his goals are nothing short of absolute garbage in their application. The unique way in which he’s been scoring and the box-office caliber of the performances that have been in tow, seem to have put paid to utilizing anything approaching common sense in some quarters.
Andre Villas-Boas’ side have been going through a rough patch in front of goal recently and with Jermain Defoe injured, Emmanuel Adebayor’s head in the clouds (or up his backside) and Lewis Holtby still acclimatizing to English football, Gareth Bale’s done what all supposedly ‘world-class’ players should do and stepped up to his plate when the chips have been down.
Although the current trend of hypothetically trying to imagine how gloomy things would be without his goals, is exactly that – hypothetical.
COYS
Well said!
Yes he has hit a purple patch and scored a couple of screamers BUT he is only 1 cog in the machine that is Tottenham Hotspur . Lets not FORGET the other squad players
I can take the ‘your a one man team’ jibe from some supporters but not the bloody gooners.
Van Persie was virtually their ONLY goal scorer last year & pretty much single handedly dragged them to Champs League qualification.
Up until Bale’s purple patch (which has only been for a month or so) all the praise was for Defoe ‘the deadliest striker’ in England, so clearly we are not a one man team.
AVB is about right when he says the team has goals in it.. we have potential goalscorers in almost every position these days, so if GBs goals dry up like Defoe’s did, there are still options.