The Hammers and Potter fought out a tight 0-0, with both teams stripped of their best players.
Xherdan Shaqiri was a late scratch for this game and so, with West Ham’s Dimitri Payet sitting in the stands with wife and child, there were two conspicuous creative absentees. Stoke, however, still had Bojan and Marko Arnautovic to carry the attacking load, as well as Ibrahim Afellay, so they were feeling much secure in this regard than their hosts. West Ham have their entire first choice attack out injured, and have scored only three goals in their last six matches. Enner Valencia’s presence on the bench, returning earlier than expected, offered at least some comfort.
It was an open match, with both teams creating enough to win. Adrian and Jack Butland were called upon multiple times to prevent their teams going behind, with both up to the task. Substitute Mame Biram Diouf should have taken at least one of his two golden chances, and Mauro Zarate struck the post. It was, all in all, a display of fuzzy effectiveness from both teams; although it wasn’t particularly secure, a 0-0 draw was, by the end, a fair result.
Formations
James Tomkins remained the starting right-back, with Slaven Bilic demonstrably convinced by his defensive superiority over Carl Jenkinson. James Collins replaced the injured Winston Reid, and Alex Song started once again in midfield. Cheikhou Kouyate began in as an attacking midfielder, alongside Michail Antonio and Mauro Zarate. With Carroll up front, a direct style, built on a firm defensive base, was the plan.
Mario van Ginkel stepped in for the injured Shaqiri, with Arnautovic and Afellay around him. Bojan began as a nominal striker, but it was clear he was going to drop into midfield, as a false nine. The rest of the Stoke City starting XI was as it was against Manchester City, with a strong spine of Butland, Shawcross and Whelan supporting it.
Michail Antonio given tough task on full debut.
Slaven Bilic gave Michail Antonio a tantalising cameo last weekend against Manchester United, but his time with the grass between his studs was short, too brief to really give a full impression of his ability at this level. Here, with Victor Moses out, Antonio had his full debut, and was given a taxing brief. James Tomkins retained his right-back spot, and as such West Ham were less progressive on that side of the pitch. It meant that Antonio, who began nominally out on the right, was without the sort of wide support that Mauro Zarate enjoyed on the other side in Aaron Cresswell.
It led to a fair amount of drifting, with both Antonio and Zarate, and to a lesser extent Cheikhou Kouyate, floating from flank to flank, poised to break quickly. Antonio provided a few thrilling moments in the first half, two or three muscular runs down the right, though all ended in lacklustre crosses. In the second half, he gave the crowd a preview of a budding partnership with Carroll, twice scuppering chances after reading Carroll’s knockdowns superbly. His athleticism is brutally effective, plain for all to see, but his decision making must be improved, something that will organically happen as his league-starts tally increases.
Shawcross v Carroll: An old-fashioned clash.
In this new Stoke City team, with its continental flavour, slick passing and low centre of gravity, Ryan Shawcross seems a bit of a relic, now a necessary vice, a prize bull still branded with the iron of the old regime. There aren’t many traditional centre forwards in the league that can really get him snorting and pawing the ground, but West Ham have one of them. Andy Carroll and Shawcross tussled vigourously, clawing at one another, fighting for heading positions, and generally providing a marked contrast to the free-form silkiness happening at the other end.
Shawcross remains a little too Pulis-esque in some ways. He nearly cost his side a goal, passing oddly to Mark Noble under no pressure whatsoever. Only a fine, scrambling tackle prevented Noble from shooting, or drawing a penalty. Perhaps, in all the wrestling with Carroll, Shawcross was scanning the top of the pitch, looking to hit a long ball to Peter Crouch. Mark Hughes understands the need for hardened steel at the back in this league, but will not want his centre half slipping back into bad habits.
In the first half, the battles were largely staged beneath long vertical balls, with Carroll and Shawcross sharing the spoils. But after half time, a break during which Slaven Bilic had obviously made clear he wanted more crosses, the play out wide improved for the home side, and Carroll had much more to work with. West Ham put nearly double the amount of crosses in during the second stanza as they had in the first, and Carroll, after having not even contested an aerial duel in the opposition box in the first half, leaped three times there in the second, winning the contest twice. West Ham, hamstrung by so many key attacking injuries, were forced to be concussively rudimentary here, and Shawcross and Carroll were in their element.
Bojan’s false nine role too vague.
Bojan dropped frequently, and deeply, involving himself in the midfield play from the outset. It was not an uncommon sight to see the diminutive striker run all the way to his own defence to collect the ball directly from them. His movement was designed to draw out centre backs Collins and Ogbonna, and give defensive midfielders Noble and Song an unsettling presence sneaking in from behind them. With Marko Arnautovic more than capable of slotting in and playing as a central attacking threat when Bojan wandered downfield, it was a smart, stylish system indeed.
It did, however, mean that Stoke had no anchored focal point up front, and with West Ham dropping deep, trying to stifle passing options in the midfield, it put a lot of pressure on Stoke’s defenders to pass with pinpoint precision. The pressure told when Shawcross passed straight to a roving Mark Noble, nearly costing his team a goal.
Afellay, Bojan, Arnautovic and van Ginkel all swirled beautifully, but their approach was dizzy, suffering a lack of focus. It didn’t go unnoticed, as Mark Hughes brought on Mame Biram Diouf after 55 minutes, for van Ginkel. He took up the striker’s position, and Bojan dropped back into the hole behind him. Diouf had the two best chances of the match, and although his shooting was invariably aimed right at Adrian, his presence at the top of the formation was far more compelling than Bojan’s had been.
Conclusion
For West Ham, it’s difficult to draw too many conclusions from this match. This is a harrowing period they have to endure, such is their injury blight. Bilic sent on only attacking substitutions as the game rollicked toward the finale, admirably so, because ambitious forward play isn’t really expected while all of his first choice attackers are out. James Collins continues to prove his worth as a valuable man to have in a crisis, and Tomkins remains the first choice at right-back. As for Stoke, they certainly did enough to win this match, although their Bojan-as-false-nine formation is still to be fully refined.
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