Gareth Bale's impressive debut

Source: official site

Martin Jol described Gareth Bale as a 'wonderful talent' after the youngster's impressive debut at Old Trafford.

Gareth returned from a month out with knee and thigh problems with a 45-minute stint for Wales in midweek and pulled on a Spurs shirt for the first time in a competitive fixture against Manchester United.

Only recently turned 18, Gareth played advanced of Young-Pyo Lee in a left midfield role and was undaunted by the prospect of facing the champions as he freely raided down that left flank in our narrow 1-0 defeat.

Indeed, Gareth's drive forward and clever pass for Dimitar Berbatov provided one of the talking points of the afternoon as the striker and defender Nemanja Vidic came together in the box - a possible penalty - and in the same instant, Berba managed to poke the ball goalwards, Rio Ferdinand clearing off the line.

We were denied another possible penalty and a certain goal when a combination of Wes Brown's chest and left arm blocked Berba's close range effort a couple of minutes later and to compound it all, Nani soon blasted home from 30 yards to win it for United.

"I still feel Gareth's a left-back but he's very good going forward and quicker than you would think," commented Martin at Old Trafford.

"There is a lot to come from him.

"He has a great left foot, a very good free-kick and that's what I wanted to see before the game. It was his first game and I wanted him to start."




Good to have some positives to be talking about once again ...