Geoff Cameron starts, it looks like he's back at right back instead of left back. Maurice Edu doesn't make the 18. The match is being shown live on ESPN3 and ESPN Deportes. Stoke City FC @stokecity #scfc team to play West Ham United: Begovic; Cameron, Huth, Shawcross (c), Wilkinson; Walters, Whelan, Nzonzi, Etherington; Adam; Crouch. Stoke City FC @stokecity #scfc substitutes: Sorensen (GK), Shotton, Upson, Palacios, Kightly, Jones, Jerome.
Take in the irony: Edu can't make the team because he refuses to play long ball football. This is wild speculation, but I can see Edu trying to pass on the ground in training and Pulis slowly growing redder and redder: Fur f**k sake Edu, launch it! No one cares if you can pass. As he says this Cameron nails a 100mph cross at crouch's face. See, do like Cumron.
gCam out right again. Early on he gets a long leg in to stop a cross. The ensuing cross is headed away by Whelan and for a second I thought it shattered his face, then realized he has the GuyFox stash, soul patch, baby goat. Creepy. Really creepy.
0-1 Stoke and it's GuyFox with the goal. Off a corner, adams puts it on the ground, and Guy puts it in the net. This match is awesome. Ball turns over and the entire midfield rushes to the box for the long header, ball turns over and the other teams midfield rushes up the field for the long ball into the box. brilliant!
15' WEst ham attacking gCam's side. He dispossess man, turns around him with the ball, looks up, then decides to pull is back across field. Tidy, tidy work from cameron. So clean.
LOL. Can see this, but part of it is probably that all Edu can do is pass it sideways and backwards. Not sure of the shock. The guy has come from a league that is clearly worse than MLS. Of course Cameron is going to be better prepared.
Nzonzi is not better at anything than Edu except perhaps height. He has better height. Cameron is a smart guy. Now when his winger tucks in to help out on defense, gCam tucks in and cuts out that Ashley cole move in case the dmid and cb's get beat backdoor again. I think that has happened to them twice this year.
All in all Edu at Rangers was nothing but stagnation. Plain and simple. When I heard he took this offer I immediately wrote him off. Wrong place for him. Should have gone to France. Same with Cling D IMO. nought Liverpool was a much better fit for him. Two bad moves for YA IMO.
gCam tosses Carroll aside and wins the header. WEst ham attacking down their right now, away from Geoff. In fact, Diame has switched away from him. For those not watching Geoff's work, you need to see how good this guy is.
Geoff with a pretty nice open field backheel that #26 loses. In fact #26 has ruined at least 3 or 4 attacks in the last few minutes.
I think Edu is a really really good player. Bad luck with Stoke so far but I am confident he will land on his feet.
Edu should have gone to France for a number of reasons, but you can understand wanting to jump in the big pond. He came late to a side already chock-a-block with his type of player. Again, can't blame the guy for making the move and I think he'll get his shot as well, but I think there were better moves in the soccer scheme of things. Edu is a good player - not a great player, but a perfectly good player. Stoke will need him at some point.
didn't see the goal but the cross came from the Hammer's left. O'Brien scored and promptly ran out to buy a lotto ticket. 86 in. Still tied.
Edu is paying the price for an awful career decision. A guy who lacks the technical ability to play at a high level moving to a club that values possession and technical ability less than almost any in a top division across the world? Stupid. As for Cameron, he'd be better off elsewhere too but he's already a very solid and technical player whose probably reached near his potential so his move won't hurt as much. Still he's a good enough player to start in the midfield for much better sides in the prem and he could definitely get better just from playing with similar level skill players. I could see him playing for a team like Newcastle as a replacement for Tiote (if he moves on). Of course playing RB certainly doesn't help GCam with exposure as a midfielder.
Is he better at RB with Stoke than his CB play with the NT? I think he does OK paired with Bocanegra with the NT, but not outstanding.
This may sound ridiculous, but how well do you perform when you are working with someone and they are yelling at you and telling you what to do all the time? When Cameron plays with Edu or Goodheader you get the sense they are playing together, with Boca I get the sense, he's got Boca in his head too much.
Huh? First of all, why would lacking technical ability hurt you at a club that does not value technical ablility? What's stupid is that logic.
I see your point and had to do a bit of a double-take as well, but am assuming he means that Edu will not improve his technical ability at Stoke.