Green, Spector, Ferdinand, Collins, Konchesky, Benayoun, Mullins, Reo-Coker, Etherington, Harewood, Tevez Subs: Carroll, McCartney, Sheringham, Zamora, Bowyer
Correction - 57:10 GOAL - Jonathan Spector West Ham 0 - Wigan 2 Shot by Leighton Baines (Wigan) left-footed from right channel (30 yards), resulting in open play. Own goal by Jonathan Spector (West Ham) (bottom-right of goal) from own half (18 yards).West Ham 0-2 Wigan. Spector's first goal for West Ham...I read on a forum that the shot deflected off of Spector's backside and went in. Have yet to see the replays...
Rated a 4 by Sky, with the comment "Awful" http://home.skysports.com/matchratings.aspx?fxid=298543&cpid=8&clid=21
The West Ham fans are in revolt but not over Spector's goal, it was just a bad deflection. Anyway, not his greatest game for us but he was not the worst on the pitch by a long way. What's saving his skin with the fans at the moment is him giving the appearance of trying. He allowed his attacker to get goal side a few times and went through a spell of not being able to clear the ball without it rebounding off Wigan players a couple of feet away. Whether that was down to him being too slow on the pass or the Wigan player just being particualrly quick closing down I don't know. Tried getting involved in attacking play on the overlap and even if he messed up a bit with positioning he was able to retrive the situation by putting in a good tackle. Made one very good tackle in the penalty box second half. Spector got clumped a couple of times but bounced back OK. Wigan's third goal should have stood, wrongly called offside.
After reading a West Ham message board it sounds like Spector took a beating. Most of post on that board are supportive of Jonathan but not todays game.
yeah he played pretty bad, probably the worst i have seen him. He kept giving the ball away, and seemend to always be under pressure and wasnt able to deal with it. But still his physical and atheltic attributes are great, he needs to work on his composure in the back and possibly getting forward more and most importantley HE NEEDS TO WANT THE BALL. He was shying away from it as his touches got worse, something alot of high school players have problems with, unfortunatley this isnt high school so its unacceptable....
hahahhaha, ok man, actually this i took verbatim from the British annoucners on setanta or FSC, cant remember which channel i was watching(i was watching the match and totally agreed with the comentator). How can you possibly say thats an American idiom? How valid is the word soccer within football? thats my question to you appoo
Because I've never seen David Beckham publish a book entitled "just get me the damn ball". Or from Ronaldinho. I've also never seen too many battles about who has to be the alpha dog and the focal point. In general, big name players LOVE to play with other big name players because it actually makes them look better. I agree, being AFRAID of the ball is a bad thing. But not caring about having the ball, I think, is acceptable. American sports celebrate individual success more so than teamm success. That's different from soccer IMO.
"American sports celebrate individual success more so than teamm success. That's different from soccer IMO" you should change that to "American atheletes celebrate individual success more so than team success" but american sports in general celebrate the team just as in europe... there is not one player that transcends the cowboys, yankees, steelers, red sox, etc... i think the team concept is still very much still the status quo in american sports... every time the yankees, cowboys, pistons, flyers, lose, i celebrate, so do most true americans and again appoo, i remind you, british comentators were noting this about spector not eric wynalda.... kind of sends your theory in a tailspin...
I would hope so, club fans have a much better perspective than national fans. Everybody's going to have a nightmare game now and then, he ought to be judged on his whole season. I suspect he will.