in what is surely West Ham's weakest lineup since we were in the Championship it looks like Spector is getting a start in midfield today. lots of injuries to the team, lets see if Spector can impress today... 1423: WEST HAM v SUNDERLAND LINE-UPS West Ham: Green, Neill, Tomkins, Upson, Ilunga, Noble, Spector, Stanislas, Boa Morte, Di Michele, Tristan. Subs: Lastuvka, Lopez, Dyer, Nsereko, Collins, Sears, Payne. Sunderland: Gordon, Bardsley, Ferdinand, Ben-Haim, Collins, Malbranque, Whitehead, Richardson, Leadbitter, Cisse, Murphy. Subs: Fulop, Nosworthy, Edwards, Jones, Reid, Healy, McShane. Referee: Mike Jones (Cheshire)
Re: Spector: April 9th West Ham vs Sunderland Let's go Spector. Show them what you got. I'm thinking this game is April 4th instead of 9th.
Re: Spector: April 9th West Ham vs Sunderland uh, yeah. April 4th. I have no idea why I thought today was the 9th....mods feel free to change with my apologies
Spector looks like he might have hurt his shoulder pretty bad. They have the stretcher out and a lot of medical staff.
Spector hurt. Didn't see what actually happened, but looked serious as there was a lot of medical attention as he was stretchered off.
On a contested header, the opponent but an elbow in the back of his neck. His body immediately stiffened up and he crashed his entire body weight on his left shoulder. It looked like he might have been using his left arm to hold the oxygen mask, as they carted him off. So I think his shoulder is fine. It sounded like he was going to go to the hospital, I am thinking with a serious concussion.
That is absolutely horrible news...right after coming back from injury. Please keep posting updates as they come...God i really hope Spector's okay
WTF? Why do the soccer gods hate Spector? He missed the WC 2006 due to freak injury. He's missed at least 2 training camps due to injury, which put him behind the rest of team for significant part of season (having to work his way back). He is always the model corporate citizen, finally gets a run in the side, and now this. Crap. I hope there isn't some sort of cumulative effect where this is becoming dangerous now for his career. After a while, these injuries/concussions have a way of not allowing a player to really play (without further injury). Hope to goodness that's not the game. Sky reporting its a concussion, and not shoulder which I guess is better given he had serious shoulder injury before (but not totally good). NO ONE can doubt this guy's fearlessness or commitment to his team. He risks his health all the time on individual plays and doesn't back down.
I would much more prefer that this was broken something or other rather than a concussion. Concussions are BAD news as each one you get multiplies the odds of you going freakin brain dead by about a million. On the other hand he also had a serious shoulder injury a while back so I also hope it's not the same shoulder. F&%$. Some guys are just an injury magnet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/7982235.stm "1704: "They may have outplayed us today, I'm guessing by the scoreline. But it's common courtesy for me to ask what happened with Jonathan Spector and is he OK?" A downbeat Sunderland fan, via text on 81111 Lovely touch, that. Unfortunately we don't know anything more at this time, but I'll try to give you an update as soon as possible." Very classy from that Sunderland fan.
Obviously, his health is more important at this point, but I just wanted to point out that he appears to have played more his traditional right back role, rather than the midfield as a previous poster asserted. http://soccernet-assets.espn.go.com/gamecast?id=244153&page=features&cc=5901&league=ENG.1 Select "Average position", then "West Ham", and you'll see what I mean.
He played RB and was getting forward really well -not a superior performance but his play was very solid
I assumed that since Neill was listed first in the lineup I saw and Spector wasn't listed 6th or 7th that Spector was playing in the midfield. He's played there before for West Ham, but clearly he wasn't playing there today.
so the weakest West Ham in years> Sunderland.... Got it! Edit: Shit, just read the 2nd and 3rd page..... Is Spector all right? Crap!
Damn, I feel for Spector. I really hope this doesn't put him on the self for a while but I understand if it does. I caught a glimpse of the incident on replay and it scared me. I've been there. As a recepitant of multiple concussions they are not to be brushed off. I did and have had some lingering issues because they were brushed off.