From the excellent Guardian chalkboards:
It may well take Fredrik Stoor a time to settle in – certainly he looks like he might be alright – but today showed partly why he hasn’t broken through yet. Aside from several testing defensive outings, he has also been quite iffy with the ball. Today Chris Baird gave the ball away once in the first half. He got injured and Stoor replaced him, and in the second half Stoor gave the ball away nine times. It can be hard to find the pace of the game, especially in a match like this, but equally, you can’t afford to give Arsenal the ball cheaply. The red arrows above show donations: some of Stoor’s are doubled up because he gave the ball away twice in the same place.
To be strictly fair, today reinforced Roy’s decision to make Stoor his 3rd choice RB. Aside from his tentative play and his timid passing, his leaving his position when Davies passed back to him could have lost us the game. Fair do’s though; it seems churlish to criticize anyone in Black and White today.
Comment by HatterDon — February 28, 2009 @ 7:50 pm |
We’ve seen from internationals that this guy has talent. The big question is whether he will push on or whether he’ll be like Volz and not really develop as he can. The shame for him is that Pantsil has been so surprising. I suspect that Roy thought Pantsil a useful player but expected Stoor to be the main man on the right. But it didn’t work out like that and now Stoors development may be hampered by a lack of opportunity. Nothing Roy can do here really. He just needs to keep picking the best players available.
Comment by rjbiii — February 28, 2009 @ 10:22 pm |
Stoor looked shaky defending as well, and they attacked his side of the field almost every time, because the Gunners saw the same thing. It will be nice to have Pantsil back for Hull and hopefully Baird backing him up.
This team is a goal scorer away from being really really good.
Great point today and I thought the Cottagers deserved three.
Comment by Kelly — February 28, 2009 @ 11:41 pm |
Dan has posted on this:
http://hammyend.com/?p=987
and I commented on it in the thread below by accident…
“re. Stoor, if there’s one thing that I hope we’re all on board with by now is that we shouldn’t judge a player too quickly. He might adjust, might be in poor form, or might lack confidence. The player we see now isn’t necessarily the player we’ll see if he’s here next year. As rjbiii says, he has talent, clearly, it’s just whether he can fit in with what Hodgson’s doing.”
Comment by weltmeisterclaude — February 28, 2009 @ 11:58 pm |
Hi guys, I just posted the below on HammyEnd but since the same topic is on both site I just “copy and paste” my post from there:
As I have said time and time again (and stopped saying on TIFF lately) is that everyone who has seen Stoor play for Sweden will know what a quality player he is.
I think Stoor has a number of challenges out of his control such as getting a run of games, playing with the same guys around him when he do get to play and of course it doesn’t help when he gets the “Baird treatment” from the fans.
Another thing that will work against him is his personality, he has never (in the 11 years I have followed his career) been much of a charismatic “people person” and unless he puts on the charm people will think John Pantsil is the best thing since sliced bread.
Don’t get me wrong I like Pants. But I’m getting more and more anoyed with his “kiss ass antics”. The laps of honor, kissing the badge, running up to the fans after a game he wasn’t involved in is just a bit much for a player who hasn’t been at the club for more than 8-9 months. BUT people seems to be buying it… To me it’s just a bit much. Sure, if he would have come through the academy or been with the club for donkeys years, I would love it. Now it seems more like he’s acting. “They booed me at Wet Spam, this time I will win the hearts of the fans by some serious “sucking up” and not get them on my back.
Well John, don’t worry man, as long as it’s a charm contest, you will be ahead of Fredrik every day of the week. I actually had a friend interviewing Fredrik a few weeks back but his responses to the questions where so meaningless and boring that the paper considered not publishing the result. They did, but it wasn’t a particularly good read ;)
Oh well, this turned into such a long post, maybe it should have been a “article” on its own :) Guess it’s time to get back to my movie and another glass of wine!
COYW!
Comment by Nick — March 1, 2009 @ 12:37 am |
Had a little go at the chalkboard myself this morning, Rich, re. Danny Murphy.
Not sure if my tactical analysis is up to your standard, though.
http://hammyend.com/?p=993
Comment by Dan — March 1, 2009 @ 1:56 pm |
Quite interestingly, Baird has started two games for us in defence this season in the League: Spurs away and Arsenal away. Both have resulted in clean sheets, and excellent performances from that man. No longer do I get fearful when I hear his name read out. Well done on turning it around Chris Baird.
Comment by Nick W — March 3, 2009 @ 4:48 pm |