It seems that my good friend Jamie Davies has once again made a perfect prediction ...wait, let me correct that ... has for the first time made a perfect prediction. In a game of two halves, the points were shared at the Boleyn Ground last night as a dangerous West Ham attack were halted by a resilient Stoke City defence.
A well worked goal by Stoke's Jonathan Walters in the first 13 minutes from a corner (that of which I'm pretty sure made Gary Neville pee himself when he saw it by the way he kept going on and on about it) helped the Potters keep most of the momentum in the first half, and were unlucky not to score again from a fantastic Steven N'Zonzi strike that rattled the bar.
West Ham however came out into the second half a completely different team, and leveled the scores within 3 minutes of the restart through full-back Joey O'Brien. The Hammers threw everything they had at Stoke and had many chances to take the lead, most notably from a Gary O'Neil shot that flew across the face of goal, narrowly missing the post by literally centimetres. But thanks to a solid defence, lead by Shawcross and Huth, and some fantastic goalkeeping by Begovic, Stoke just managed to scrape a point.
So why didn't West Ham take all three points. There are mainly 5 reasons for this.
1) Injuries. In my opinion, we were at a disadvantage before the start of the game, when the line-ups were announced and Matt Jarvis and Yossi Benayoun were unable to play through injury, with Modibo Maiga and Gary O'Neil replacing them on the wing. This probably wasn't the best time for these two players to make their first Premier League starts for the club. Early on, Jarvis' absence became very obvious as neither player could really put in that dangerous cross into the box that he is renowned for. Both players also lacked the pace of Jarvis and Benayoun, and were constantly requiring the full-backs to make their runs and crosses for them or even to let one of the midfielders do it.
2) The long ball. I am not a West Ham fan that is constantly complaining or moaning about the long ball style of play that Sam Allardyce is constantly being criticised for. In fact I am the exact opposite. I know that this tactic can be effective, and if we get the results then I don't really care how we get them. However, last night the quality of the long ball's into Andy Carroll were very poor, and seemed very easy for Shawcross or Huth to clear. They were constantly on a difficult line and length for our attackers to collect, and all our momentum seemed to simply disappear whenever one was attempted and failed. As well as this, our set plays were totally ineffective. A total of 12 corners led to absolutely nothing and although set plays are usually when we are at our strongest in attack, the Stoke defence didn't seemed troubled by them at all.
3) Substitutions. Throughout the whole of the second half, the name that I was constantly asking Allardyce to bring on was Matt Taylor. Maiga was struggling on the left wing, and a fresh set of legs could have helped put on the pressure to the Stoke full-backs. He did make this substitute eventually, however it was made only three minutes before the end and was therefore completely ineffective. I was also disappointed by his decision to replace Carroll with Carlton Cole at the same time. Big Andy looked determined throughout the whole game to score his first West Ham goal and gave a look of total despair to Allardyce when he was brought off for a player who has no great pace, is constantly pulled up for fouls from aerial duels (unlike Carroll) and is more inconsistent than the size of Katy Price's bra.
4) Chris Foy. Soon, I'll be writing an article about referee's so make sure you check that out when it's done. But for now, I'd like to complain about referee Chris Foy. In the lead up to the Stoke goal, there was clearly an obstruction on George McCartney by Charlie Adam to make sure he was unable to follow his marker Walters. This was not spotted by the referee and meant that the goal stood, practically ruining are first half mentality. Also, it seems to me that referees do not call fouls for pulling on shirts or grabbing players around the waist in the penalty area. West Ham had three or four free-kick and penalty shouts that according to the laws of the game were legitimate and should have been awarded. However, referees these days are so weak willed that they are too scared to award these for fear of seeming biased for or against one team or many others reasons I'm sure.
5) Lack of clinical finishing. Unfortunately, we do not have a player like Hernandez or Torres or Van Persie, and last night that was clear. We lacked the clinical finish that was needed to secure the victory, and although we do have Kevin Nolan, he is ultimately a midfielder, not a striker. Begovic should be praised for his goalkeeping skills, but if we had been more clinical, we could have won by about three or four. It is vital that we buy a player in January that can help us with this issue and get Vaz Te back in the team as quickly as possible.
Ultimately a disappointing night for us, but credit has to be given to a solid Stoke defence that kept us out very well (it's well worth mentioning that Peter Crouch made more touches in his own penalty area than in ours!). A tough fixture list lies ahead for West Ham: Tottenham (a), Manchester United (a), Chelsea (h), Liverpool (h), West Brom (a), Everton (h). If an aim of five points from those six games is reached then I believe we should be very pleased with ourselves and the start to this Premier League season that we have made.
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