Bale making the most of new role

Gareth Bale is relishing his new attacking role and hopes he can continue banging in the goals to help Tottenham sustain their title challenge.

Bale took his tally for the season to eight on Tuesday 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.

The Welshman was given a more central attacking role than his usual place on the left flank, and the player himself is enjoying his new role, saying: "The free role is helping me improve as a player as I'm not being marked out of the game."

He added: "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 came as some Norwich fans taunted the winger, branding him a "chimp".

Redknapp described the chants as "sick", but Bale was not too concerned.

"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 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.

"It's great to be up there but we know ultimately that we have to keep concentrating," he 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."

Source: PA

Source: PA