Nice cross by Cameron leading to a Stoke goal. West Ham couldn't deal with the cross, it fell to a Stoke player who shot and Moses bundled home the rebound. A few minutes before that, a Geoff slip led to a dangerous counter attack.
1-0 stoke. Moses. Cameron with great cross ( I know...I know) and ball bounces around for moses. Cameron was crucial in the build up, great...exceptional tackle in the box. He's playing well and so is stoke.
Pretty sure he is banned. Edit - Yep http://nav.thefa.com/sitecore/conte...ink.aspx?_id=D6CA03B6740C4E78A1E74E2493E9199B
That was fast. Get it out the way quickly, I guess. He is the first to the 5 card suspension. Maybe he got good odds on himself?
Extremely solid half for Cameron in my opinion. All around game, making fantastic tackles and getting forward a ton. Stoke are taking it to West Ham. Cameron has put in his obligatory cut backs, slice and dice dribbling, and my personal favorite (not) is the outside the right foot cross. But the latter, in the 45', was a thing of beauty. Gets the ball on the right, slices thru 2-3 players and puts in the cross. Moses does great to turn and just misses a goal. He's just been great in the 1st half.
He's just gotten some strong praise from one of the announcers: "he's been excellent". Talked about his athleticism and willingness to get forward.
West Ham scores on the break. A beautiful cross makes it past Cameron (and Shawcross) to an open Valencia, who puts a diving header in. Great goal.
2-2 west ham have turned the game around. I thought cameron was at fault for the 1st goal. Not sure why he chose to move to the central man.
http://www.gfycat.com/AcceptableExcitableGrub here's the 1st West Ham goal, Geoff should have stayed wide with his man instead of double teaming in the middle. nice header though.
Great game to watch, very enjoyable. Overall Cameron played fantastic, best game from him in 12 months in my opinion. Was a beast going forward, he specializes in jumping the pass and taking it on the break. Then he keeps his run going and ends up on the end of crosses in the box. Love it. He's a box to box RB. Was inches away from putting Stoke up in the 85th. I would have imploded.
Thanks for the highlights. IMHO Geoff is a victim of his center back's (Shawcross?) ball watching on the cross. Shawcross is not covering that center man at all. If Geoff doesn't move to the central attacker, that attacker has an open header from the penalty spot. Geoff saw that extreme vulnerability and had to go there. Geoff probably knew he had an attacker behind him but the more dangerous man in approaching the center of the box unmarked. Geoff's is in a no win situation caused by a ball watching Shawcross who didn't turn up field and mark up.
Fantastic going forward, useless defending. Much like the whole team. Unlucky not to grab the winner. 3rd best player after Bojan and Nzonzi for me Sidwell is useless, so move Geoff back into the middle next week
When I saw lineup I thouht, wow sparky decided to actually coach and roll out a 4-4-3 with Cameron as right mid. It would have set this west ham team back. Sparky never disappoints.
I completely understand what you're saying. But whenever I watch teams with a 4 man backline, which is almost everyone these days, the fullback almost always comes in to bracket the center forward, and hopes the winger isn't ghosting in behind him. I'll bet anything that most coaches, if not all coaches, tell their fullbacks not to leave the central defender 1v1 in that situation.
Let's both agree that he should have at least gotten a foot to the cross, The marking would have been moot. A blip on an otherwise solid performance.
It's so nice to read you write about Sparky and be reminded of your brilliant and accurate Fulham predictions...