Stoke Fan View: Drastic changes needed for West Ham after shambolic performance against Swansea
Berahino not being droppped highlights Hughes’ team selection inconsistencies.
As someone who really wants it to work for Saido I’ve been incredibly disappointed with his first ten games as a Stoke player. Obviously not scoring any goals is a worry as he’s had quite a few clear cut chances, that should’ve been buried. If he got that first goal no doubt his confidence and performances would’ve come.
However, when you’ve got a young striker with Ngoy who’s in an out of the Senior and under 23’s squad it’s infuriating. As a youngster you would be asking the question, how can someone who has not scored retain his place for ten games? Honestly with nothing at all to play for except the metaphorical pride, why not start to integrate some of the younger players?
Hughes persisting with Berahino during this poor spell I think was out of optimism, that his signing could show why he wanted to pay the huge sum of money for him. However it highlights his inconsistencies as last time Marc Muniesa and Giannelli Imbula played a premier league match, they were man of the match but were then bizarrely dropped the following week. It’s no wonder we’ve got so many players so infuriated by lack of first team opportunities.
Playing Shaqiri behind the striker is a necessity not an option.
What we learnt from Swansea is 4-4-2 just does’t work. What we’ve learnt from the second half of the season, Joe Allen isn’t a ten. With a combination of these two and the bizarre loaning out of Bojan it is compulsory we play someone who has all the attributes and knowledge to play in such an important position.
Shaqiri’s vision and technique is arguably the best in our entire squad, he see’s passes not even I see from the stands. Playing him consistently in the 10 role would allow Ramadan to be re-introduced and would enable him to become a bigger influence on the game.
I’m honestly incredibly shocked that we haven’t already seen this in action yet, as that three behind whoever is up top would frighten anyone with it’s flair, attacking movement and willingness to get a hold of the ball and influence the game. Based on our goal scoring output recently, it’s got to be worth a shot.
Don’t play direct as it’s become boring and predictable
It’s about time we stopped going back to the Pulis ball style of all and went with what Mark Hughes originally had us playing. ‘Stokealona’ is now already a thing of the past as we have gone back to a bland style of play that saw Tony Pulis being sacked.
It’s become a painful experience watching us in recent months, especially away from as it looks like we don’t have an actual game. At times it looks like we don’t actually want to go and win the game.
It would make the atmosphere around the club a lot better if we went back to the equsite football which made us and pundits fall in love with the team. This team has become unrecognisable from what we were like originally which is quite upsetting in all honesty as we had so much promise.
