Gareth Bale is thriving in his new attacking role and hopes he can continue to get amongst the goals and help Tottenham's title push.
Welshman loving the freedom of playing more centrally
Gareth Bale is thriving in his new attacking role and hopes he can continue to get amongst the goals and help Tottenham's title push.
The Welshman took his tally for the season to eight last night when he struck twice to give Tottenham a 2-0 win at Norwich, which lifted them within seven points of joint leaders Manchester City and Manchester United with a game in hand.
Bale was handed a more attacking brief than his usual place on the left flank, playing more centrally alongside Emmanuel Adebayor and Rafael van der Vaart in a three-man strikeforce which looked devastating when in full flow.
Bale is already enjoying his most prolific season of his career - he averages a goal every 2.25 games - but he has found life tough at times, with opposition teams sometimes deploying two or even three markers on the 22-year-old in an attempt to stop combat his searing pace.
Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp described Bale as "unplayable" and the player himself is enjoying his new role.
"The free role is helping me improve as a player as I'm not being marked out of the game," Bale said.
Enjoyable
"I've always played out wide, I've never really thought about playing through the middle. Since people have been double-marking me or even triple-marking me it's something that I've had to bring into my game.
"It's enjoyable, especially when the team's playing as well as it is. It's great to be in there. Hopefully I can keep continuing to play in the kind of form that I am and I hope I will get more goals."
Bale's performance helped silence a section of the Norwich fans who taunted the winger, branding him a "chimp".
Redknapp described the chants as "sick", but Bale insists he was not too concerned by the chants.
"It happens every week," he said. "It's nothing different but I kind of shut them up by scoring two goals so it was good."
With Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and City all drawing, Tuesday's win was vital for Spurs and the three points will only serve to heighten expectations around White Hart Lane.
With a weekend trip to Swansea followed by four home games in January, Redknapp's team have a clear opportunity to make inroads on the top two, but Bale was keen to warn against complacency.
Focused
"It's great to be up there but we know ultimately that we have to keep concentrating," Bale said.
"It's not even halfway through the season, there's still a lot of games to go and nothing's achieved at this stage of the season.
"Hopefully we can keep the form that we're in and keep pushing ourselves up the table."
Bale is particularly looking forward to taking on Swansea in his native Wales on Saturday.
"It will be a good experience. Hopefully I'll get a good reception," he said with a smile. "It will be great to play there, I've played at the Liberty Stadium a few times for Wales and it's a great stadium.
"Swansea play some great football and we know it's going to be a hard game, one we're going to have to concentrate 100% and hopefully get the three points."
