It sounds so simple but many teams have failed to do it this season, in essence if you stop Bale from playing then you will go a long way in stopping Tottenham from playing. Liverpool will need to closely mark the Welsh International, it may be a case of man-marking him throughout the match to stem his creativity and stop him from making the sorts of runs that have destroyed so many teams over the last three months. In Glen Johnson, Liverpool have someone who can come close to matching Bale for pace so it would make sense for him to be the one to keep an eye on him. One thing Liverpool have to be wary of is Bale's tendency do go down and look for penalties, the best way to combat this is to not dive in and stand him up, force him wide and turn him back; if Liverpool do not give him a reason to do down then the threat of giving away spot kicks is eliminated altogether.
