West Bromwich Albion v Stoke City – Preview
Three points clear of the relegation zone, Stoke City make the short trip to face West Brom at the Hawthorns this weekend, knowing that a victory would be enormous in our bid for survival in this our first ever Premier League season. Playing a style of football that has been commended by pundits, in contrast to Stoke’s, but lacking in any sort of substance, attacking threat or defensive capabilities, the Baggies languish at the foot of the Premier League table, seven points from safety and looking less likely to stay up than an impotent octogenarian, so the game has to be seen as the best chance to record a first away win of the season that Stoke are going to get.
An aerial view of the Maracana Hawthorns
Every club has a bogey team, to which they consistently lose, and fortunately, West Brom’s is Stoke, the Potters having won close to ninety percent of meetings over the last couple of decades, including a 1-0 victory in the return fixture back in November and a 3-1 triumph, inspired by a stunning Ricardo Fuller hat-trick in December 2007. Knowing this, the Stoke players should be afforded a psychological boost, with the reverse effect acting on West Brom. For these reasons I believe that Stoke should attack West Brom, attempt to expose their soft centre and go all out to claim a vital three points, instead of the one we often seem to set out for away from home, which in the scheme of things may not be enough.
A year to the day since James Beattie’s last hat-trick, he will be hoping to mimic Ricardo Fuller’s feat from last year on Saturday
From the above, you may have come to the conclusion that I don’t much like West Brom, and you’d be right. I hate the media coverage and praise they get for playing admittedly pretty, but wholly ineffective and insubstantial football. In the build up to the last meeting of the two clubs, one newspaper ran with the headline ”Beauty vs Beast”, comparing the two clubs. No prizes for guessing which was which. I know I’d prefer to see a committed, direct, physical team like Stoke competing at the highest level of English football and winning a fair number of matches, than a team intent on playing blunt possession football in the midfield, knowing that they are unlikely to score with their ineffective strikers and always liable to concede a goal because of their ineffectual defence.
I also hate the fact that many of their fans refuse to accept this. I recently read a comment from a West Brom fan saying they’d rather see their team play the style of football they do in the Conference than a team playing a style like ours in the Premier League. Though a descent as low as the Conference is unfortunately unlikely, it seems he’ll soon be getting to watch all the ”Brazil-esque” football he wants in the Championship next year, as after their at best unconvincing and at worst pathetic season in the Premier League, that is where they are heading. It seems all but certain that soon their relegation will be confirmed, and though Stoke won’t be the club to have the pressure of hammering the final nail into their coffin, a win for the Potters this weekend would all but end their hopes of survival. I would like little more.
Smile! You still play the best football in the league
After injuring his cruciate while warming up for the reserves last week, Malian striker Mamady Sidibe will miss the game for Stoke, and though the full extent of the damage is still not known, probably many more. Sidibe aside, Stoke manager Tony Pulis should have a full strength squad from which to select his squad of eighteen for the vital fixture, though captain and undisputed heavyweight defending champion of the world, Abdoulaye Faye is yet to return from international duty with Senegal, he should be back in time to play alongside March player of the month Ryan Shawcross at the heart of defence.
The home side’s injury list is significantly longer, with long term absentees Neil Clement and Ishmael Miller still ruled out, as well as on-loan midfielder Youssouf Mulumbu and defender Leon Barnett, who have thigh and knee problems respectively. Despite having a broken toe, Portugeuse midfielder Filipe Teixeira, who missed a sitter in the return fixture, should play.
Key Battles:
Shelton Martis v James Beattie
Unlike Beattie, after the media attention he has been getting following his recent good run of scoring form, Shelton Martis will not be the name on the lips of many football fans at the moment. After spending the first half of the season on loan at Doncaster, the 26 year old Dutch centre-back has been given a place in the starting line-up by Tony Mowbray in recent matches in an attempt to freshen up the division’s worst defence, and should continue against Stoke. It is my opinion though that West Brom have no quality defenders, and regardless of who play for them Beattie has a good chance of outmaneuvering them and getting on the scoresheet.
Robert Koren v Salif Diao
The versatile Slovenian midfield player Koren is arguably West Brom’s best player, and has a lot of input in many of their best attacking moments. Stoke holding midfielder Diao will be tasked with keeping him quiet, as he’ll probably play despite putting in some below par performances recently. It seems that Diao is a fixture in the Stoke side now, with Pulis saying that he believes him to be the best player of his type in the Premier League (He must mean 32 year old Senegalese defensive midfielders who used to play for Monaco and Liverpool).
Marc-Antoine Fortuné v Abdoulaye Faye
Striker Fortuné, on loan from French side AS Nancy, is one of the few attacking threats the Baggies have, so far netting on three occasions since joining the club on January. If Faye and his centre-back partner Shawcross can keep him out of the game, a clean sheet will be likely for Stoke.
West Brom Squad:
Goalkeepers:Scott Carson (23), Dean Kiely (38)
Defenders: Paul Robinson (30), Gianni Zuiverloon (22), Abdoulaye Meite (28), Jonas Olsson (26), Ryan Donk (23), Carl Hoefkens (30), Leon Barnett (23), Shelton Martis (26), Marek Cech (26), Neil Clement (30)
Midfielders: Robert Koren (28), Jonathan Greening (30), Borja Valero (24), James Morrison (22), Chris Brunt (24), Kim Do-Heon (26), Pedro Pele (30), Filipe Teixeira (28), Juan Carlos Menseguez (25), Graham Dorrans (22), Youssouf Mulumbu (22)
Forwards: Marc-Antoine Fortuné (27), Jay Simpson (20), Roman Bednar (26), Ishmael Miller (22), Luke Moore (23)
Star Man: Robert Koren
28 year old Koren has been one consistent performer in a bad season for West Brom, providing attacking threat and the occasional goal from is midfield position. He recently passed his century of West Brom appearances, clocking up 103 as a near ever-present since joining the club for Norwegian side Lillestrom in 2007. He has also scored fourteen goals for the Baggies. He is an important player for the national side of his native Slovenia, to date amassing 38 caps and scoring two international goals.
Comparative Club Stats: West Brom Stoke
League Position: 20th 16th
Goals Scored: 33 36
Goals Conceded: 64 54
Home Record: (W,D,L) 5,5,7 9,5,4
Away Record: (W,D,L) 2,3,13 1,4,12
Form: DDLLLL WLWDDL
Top Scorer: Bednar (6) Fuller (7)
Corresponding Result: Stoke City 1 (Sidibe 84) – 0 West Bromwich Albion – 22/11/08
Action from the last meeting of the two clubs
Very good again VJ,
Won’t be the best of games, and I expect you to be last on MotD, but it’s the result that counts, and I feel that you will edge it.
Think you’re trying too hard with “less likely to stay up than an impotent octogenarian”, and not quite sure what you’re getting at with the first picture.
Is it just me, or in the Koren-Diao pictures, does it look like Diao’s hand is over Koren’s head, accompanied by a sneeky grin from the Senegalesean???
P:S Shelton Martis = Titus Bramble
Thanks very much. I agree with your first point, I’d take a draw but really feel this is as good a chance as any to get that away win.
You’re the one that wanted me to try harder with humour. I came across that top picture and had to use it somehow. I think it fits how I feel about West Brom nicely – you did see what’s on the roof right?
I hadn’t noticed that about Diao/Koren, but you’re right, it really does look like that. ;D. I keep using Diao and Abdoulaye for “key battles”, I’m going to have to shake it up a bit soon.
I see the Martis bit, but nothing rivals the Kovac/Woodgate spot!
I agree about that find of the icture and how you had to incorporate it somehow into the blog, but I just feel it’s in the wrong sense.
The problem with using Diao the whole time, is that you don’t know who’s going to partner him, so you are forced to put him in there, so I don’t blame you.
By the way, I’ve got a cracker of a look-like coming up. You’ll have to wait.
God help us all if stoke stay up. The last thing England needs is the three teams who get promoted trying to play like stoke buying five or six, six foot plus players and playing the long ball game. It going to put the game back twenty years. That`s what will happen if stoke stay up.
Yes, how terrible would that be, a team playing successfully to their strengths, and competing in the Premier League at the highest level.
Of course, all our play as absolute dross, Ricardo Fuller’s goal of the season contender against Aston Villa was a complete fluke and of course the late winner scored by Stoke in the last game against West Brom was simply a hoof into the box and a header. It doesn’t matter that the hoof was a precise cross and the header was an excellent one and that it all followed a series of neat link up play between Michael Tonge and Danny higginbotham with penetrative powers that West Brom can only dream of.
The only thing about our game that takes it back twenty years is the passion of the fans and the atmosphere in the ground, which in these prawn sandwich days of modern football is certainly a good thing for the Premier League.
Most people have accepted Stoke as a Premier League club, and have respect for the way we go about our game, playing hard against clubs and battling for results, rather than just rolling over to concede sloppy goal after sloppy goal when twenty tappy passes in the middle of the pitch break down. It’s just the ignorant few, almost all fans of teams who feel threatened by Stoke who haven’t. Perhaps we’ll go down, perhaps we won’t, at the moment it looks as if the latter is more likely. Either way, we’ll have made a much better fist of life in the Premier League than you lot have.
Martin I suppose we need more clubs flooding their team with second rate foreign loan players do we? Thats doing English football a wonderful service.
Or filling their team with knuckle draggers like Paul Robinson?
At what point did all West Brom fans become indoctrinated by chief mowbray into this football isn’t about winning nonsense?
Still enjoy your wonderful football in the championship fella
I have to agree with I*T*P*L and danmase on this one.
As much as it would be fantastic to see every side in the Premier League playing delightful one touch passing, and playing like Arsenal in their pomp, it’s never going to happen. It’s much better, I believe, to see sides playing to their strengths, i.e. Stoke using a physcial approach and playing the long ball. If that’s what they have to do to survive, then so be it.
which away match did stoke win this season? or is it a pre-emptive away victory for tomorrow? Personally I don’t see a stoke victory on the cards. West Brom are in a win or almost certain relegation situation and with Stoke’s current away record, even the supposed bogey team effect won’t quite be enough in my opinion. score draw seems most likely
Tom (I don’t know why you call yourself Fred), the away game that was 3-2 at Cheltenham in the League Cup in August (Whelan, Cresswell, Parkin), I include cup games in all my stats. With West Brom you always know they’re not going to score many and their going to give you chances, so I remain optimistic that as long as we go about the game in the right way we can get the win.
I love the ‘Hawthorns’ picture! Obviously some construction worker got very bored!
Although I don’t share your passionate hatred for the Brummies, I agree that their football is very overrated, and if they really ‘played in the right way’, as Alan Shearer always says, then they wouldn’t be bottom of the league.
Win this game and I’d back you to stay up.
Thank you Plattsy, glad to see someone finds the picture funny (Steven didn’t). The real story behind it was that a teenage boy painted it on the roof of his own house to see if it appeared on google earth. It was more than a year before anyone discovered what he had done.
I’d back us to stay up anyway, though a win for us tomorrow would be a huge help, and also make survival even less likely for West Brom.
Quite the little Freud aren’t you Adam, no doubt the phallic symbol I have used to represent what I think of your club at the moment all goes back to my attraction to my mother.
I am by no means paranoid about Stoke’s deficiencies. I admit we have many, and if you read any of my other articles this will show through clearly. What I do know though is that we play to our strengths and play effectively particluarly at home, which has given us a great chance of staying up. Whatever happens come the end of the season, I will be very proud of what we have achieved this year, which I’m sure is more than most West Brom fans can say of their team. Can you honestly tell me you’d rather see your side playing the blunt “back and to the side” passing game you do and slipping towards relegation than watch your side play with some fight and spirit, to compete in a very good wuality league after promotion to it?
If we stay up this season, there is nothing to say we will go down next. With some decent strengthening over the summer the hope is we will become an established Premier League side.
Admittedly, a win for you today would mix things up a bit, but I’d still back you to go down. If we go about the game the right way today, there’s no way we should lose.
Haha – the closest you will ever get to Freud my friend is fancying Emma. Trite nonsense.
Where has Adam’s comment gone? The same thing happened with a couple of comments on mine!!!
Anyway, very good win for you today VJ – opens up a decent gap now.
I will not be bitter in defeat. This game summed our season up. 70% possession, but not cutting edge and useless at the back. Good luck to you Stoke boys. You will need it!
Thanks Adam, it’s always good to have a bit of banter with other clubs’ fans. I think you’re right, today’s game summed up the differences between our teams, two strikers who can take a chance on the scoresheet for us and a clean sheet to boot. Good luck for you for the rest of the season, though I reckon it’s beyond luck now.
Steven, thanks, I’m very happy with it, shame I can’t say the same for you, though I doubt you were expecting much. I don’t know about the comments, I’ve had to re-submit them, which has worked and they show now.
OK VJ
I resubmitted them, and it worked at first, but then they’ve gone again???
I love it how Adam says he will not be bitter, and then says “Good luck to you Stoke boys. You will need it!”
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