Gareth Bale: Top 5 performances in a Spurs shirt

3) Hat-trick against Aston Villa, 26th December 2012

Gareth Bale celebrates his goal during the Barclays Premier League match between Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur at Villa Park on December 26, 2012 (Getty Images)

Villa had just been thumped 8-0 by Chelsea a few days prior to this match, but were shown no mercy by Bale. The Welshman, whose form had been on the rise throughout the season, scored his first-ever Premier League hat-trick. After Jermaine Defoe’s early second-half goal gave Spurs the lead, Bale decided to pile on the goals with three superb efforts; a searing run on the counter gave him his first goal, while he got his second and third thanks to a cross from Aaron Lennon and a cut-back from Gylfi Sigurdsson, respectively. Villa struggled to cope with the Welshman, who hit a rich vein of form after that particular match.