Front four of Modric, 3 other people. Why do people insist on calling it a front four, and by doing so you made it unclear where you think Modric should be? He's slow and not particularly good on the wing, and MOTD is absolutely worthless for judging a player. If they want to they can show all the best or all the worst moments.
It's also a terrible argument to talk about crossing and height, firstly with Bales pace he should be looking to whip balls in ahead of strikers + defenders running towards the goal, with good striker movement the idea is to get to the ball ahead of the defender, on the ground, really high or anything inbetween is very winnable for any player of any height.
The problem is Bale does one of two things, spends ages trying to cut inside, then finally goes outside when its too late, goes outside, gets too close to the line and cuts it in right at the keeper.
His most successful games that I can remember involved getting passed in behind the right back, and driving towards goal with the option to shoot or square it, these days he drops deep, thinks he's Messi/Ronaldo and wants to take on the entire team.
IN football you've really got to think system first, NOT player, because Bale is completely all over the place, the other players never know where to go. A solid left winger who stays left wing and crosses in a predictable manner for the strikers is effective, when the strikers/midfielders have no clue when he's going to do anything they can't make runs. he's trying to win himself, and as soon as he's been trying to win himself, Spurs have been crap, its not a coincidence, likewise Ade, VDV, Modric, Parker, Lennon/Krancjar/whoever have all looked worse. When Spurs were winning Spurs were an 11 man team, since they've been crap they've been 10 + Bale. It's really easy to pick out a good highlights reel for Bale because he gets all the ball, every game, and wastes 95% of it at the moment.
While I don't particularly rate Ekotto, balls in behind the right back are made considerably easier when the guy you're passing in behind is that fast and powerful(put the same balls in for Modric and he'll not catch up with half of them, or be shouldered off the ball for many of the others), defensively he's looked so much worse in the past what 10 games because...... Bale is inconsistent because he's not always at left wing, Ekotto has less cover.
Bale wants to be Messi, and hasn't got a 1/10th of the talent required, and without carrying the entire team himself and scoring every game the negative side to playing like that, lack of tracking back and the like, will cost you most games. Hell even Messi predominantly stays in position on the right most games.
at that Arteta free kick.