Gareth Bale will play in his second Champions League Final in his third season with Real Madrid on Saturday.

Bale's transition both on and off the pitch with Real Madrid has not always been easy, but he feels like he's improved dramatically as a player.

“The Premier League is end to end; here teams come and sit and you have to learn a different style,” he explains. “I feel like that first season everyone didn’t know fully what I was about so I could do the same thing as in England. Then they knew what I was about and tried to nullify what I do well. I found it more difficult but I’m so happy that season did happen because I learnt a lot: about keeping the ball, movement, intelligence, decision‑making. It’s because of that bad season that I think I’ve had such a good season now. I’ve improved, I have more variety in my game.”

Bale scored a hat-trick against Inter Milan in the San Siro, which will host Saturday's match, at the age of 21 for Spurs.

“We lost in Milan but it felt like we won and that game was the reason I wanted to play in the Champions League. It was the game that gave me the confidence to know I could play against the best. To score a hat-trick against the reigning European champions … my confidence grew, belief. And I haven’t looked back from there, really.”

Bale says he feels more settled than ever with Zinedine Zidane now manager.

“I feel more a part of it now,” Bale said. “In the first year you don’t know a lot of people but I feel more settled, more integrated, more involved.”

Wayne Rooney expects to play a midfield role next season for Manchester United.

Rooney has suggested several times that he is likely to move into a deeper role in the final years of his career.

Roy Hodgson is reportedly considering playing Rooney on the left of the attack at Euro 2016.

"I think sometimes you have to make choices in your career, and at the minute it is probably better for me to play deeper," he said on the club's official website.

"Now obviously it is a bit different with England, still being a striker for England, but certainly after that [Euro 2016], for next season, that [midfield] is probably where I see myself playing."

Tottenham Hotspur were the only Premier League club to make a profit from their transfer dealings over the last two windows.

A string of sales last summer was led by Paulinho’s £9.9 million move to Guangzhou Evergrande. Lewis Holtby, Etienne Capoue, Roberto Soldado, Vlad Chiriches, Aaron Lennon and Benjamin Stambouli also left the club, while there was only a modest outlay on players such as Toby Alderweireld and Son Heung-min.

Manchester City had the biggest net spend by a comfortable margin with a £124.4 million outlay, spending on the likes of Raheem Sterling, Nicolas Otamendi and Kevin De Bruyne.

Eight of the 10 bottom-half sides spent more than second-placed Arsenal whose recruitment drive cost £15.6 million.

Carlo Ancelotti said Gareth Bale's agent went to Florentino Perez about changing his position during the 14-15 season.

Bale wanted to play in a more central position.

Ancelotti was fired by Real Madrid at the end of the 14-15 season.

"One morning in March I received a phone call from the Madrid general director saying that the president wanted to speak with me at the end of training that day. This was very unusual. When I visited the president, he told me that Bale's agent had been to his office to speak about the 'Bale situation'," Ancelotti writes in his book 'Quiet Leadership: Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches'.

"In January, Bale's agent had been saying things and perhaps felt his position was strong because he had already spoken with the president. Now he was telling the president that Bale was unhappy in his position. He wanted to play more centrally.

"The president asked me what we were going to do and I told him 'Nothing'. It was impossible to change his position at that stage of the season because I would have had to change the whole system and move many more players around. I also told the president that I was surprised the player could not speak directly with me. That would be normal. I would have expected the player to come to see me.

"Bale had fantastic world-class qualities and all that I was trying to do was help him understand his core strengths so he could fulfil his potential and by the way, that I was more qualified than his agent or the president to help him with that.

"I told the president that I would speak with Bale myself the next day, which I did after training. I told him 'I know that your agent spoke to the president. Why didn't you come to speak with me about what you want?'. He said 'Yes, OK, no problem.'

"I explained to him what I had said to the president, how it was impossible for me to change the system as it wasn't just one position, it was the whole team. I was clear with him. I told him that we could try some things in the summer, next year's pre-season, to change his position, but not now."

Luis Suarez surprised himself by how well he was able to adapt to Barcelona's tiki-taka ways.

Suarez played a much different style with Liverpool.

"I never imagined that I would be scoring goals here, I never felt I would adapt to this team's style of play the way I have," he said. "Sometimes they start the touches and I think that I can't do that, that they will play it like that and I will just push it [toward the goal]."

Barcelona won the treble in Suarez's first season and could again win La Liga this year.

Inverted wingers have become the norm in modern soccer.

Instead of having a traditional winger play on the side of their strong foot to run the sideline and play crosses in, teams are using players on the opposite side so they can cut inside.

Arjen Robben on the right flank to cut in on his left foot is one of the more prominent examples. Shooting is their primary intention but they also open up their body that allows them to play a sideways pass to attack.

With defensive teams like Atletco Madrid using a deep defensive block, it is tough to pass through them.

Manchester City used Jesus Navas in a traditional role this week against Real Madrid and was ineffective.