Neither team was at their best on Saturday. Stoke were missing two key attackers in Shaqiri and Arnautovic and struggled to break us down. Bojan started on the bench leaving Bony to lead the line against an improving West Ham defence, but one disrupted by the absence of Reid.
Bilic made one change and chose to start with Ayew up front while moving Antonio to right wing back. We again lined up in a 3-4-3 (5-2-2-1) formation as Fernandes made way to compensate for Ayew.
The game lacked energy from the start with both teams struggling to penetrate. We enjoyed the lion’s share of possession – something we struggle with – as Stoke defended deep and in numbers, looking to expose us on the counter attack.
Other than Obiang and Payet there were no star performances or any threatening more than 6 out of 10. Payet again came under criticism for his display, which we’ll look at later, and calls for Adrian to be dropped have risen.
Stoke have been in excellent form leading up to this match and are a team we have struggled against over the years. On most days, a point would have been a respectable result, but a lackluster performance and individual errors made it feel like two points dropped.
With no cup game midweek the players should have been at full match fitness and ready to put in an energetic display. Sadly they did not and Stoke were allowed to dictate the tempo and the game was played at a very slow pace.
Possession and passing but not cutting edge
Our lethargy and lack of one and two-touch passing meant that for all our possession (58.1%) most of it was in the middle or defensive third of the pitch. Of our 410 successful passes, only 79 were in Stokes final third. Even though Stoke only completed 267 passes, 82 of those were in our final third. As a percentage, this means that only 19% of our passes were completed in the attacking third, while Stoke enjoyed 31%.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. As mentioned above, Stoke are a team in top form. The game may have been flat but we did a good job of stopping them imposing themselves and aside from Adrian’s mistake, they posed little threat to our goal.
The pieces of the jigsaw will fall into place soon and the fractured performances will become more fluid. We are creating chances – not the best game to highlight that but we are – and we are passing the ball well, just not effectively. All the pieces are there, we just need to get them into place.
Obiang and Payet
Obiang was once again excellent. His passing, pressing and tackling were exemplary and he controlled the midfield well.
Completing 48 passes, three take on’s, six tackles and one interception, his performance was the best of the match. The image below shows Obiang’s performance compared to Noble’s. Noble didn’t have a bad game and posted some solid stats, but what’s evident is Obiang’s combative nature and his ability to win and recover the ball in crucial areas of the pitch.
Although he’s come under criticism recently, Payet’s creativity was an improvement on the Everton match. Over doubling the amount of chances he created, Payet’s delivery from corners and crosses was greatly improved but a poor team display and heavy marking from Stoke limited his impact. He was the joint highest rated player on whoscored.com, along with Obiang. Both achieved 7.7 out of 10 for their contributions.
I think Payet has come in for some unfair criticism in recent weeks. At times he has cast a frustrated figure and some have interpreted this to be the body language of a man uninterested and unmotivated. I think he seems discouraged sometimes by the contribution of those around him. As a team, it’s no secret that we’ve been off form and since his return, the weight of expectation on his shoulders has been immense.
It’s time for other creative players to up their game and their work rate. Lanzini is a special player, but another that has found form hard to come by. I’d like to see more from him but at the moment I’m not convinced that we can afford him and Payet starting every match, especially with the run we have coming up. Defensively we sacrifice too much.
Effort and application
We are simply not covering enough ground and even though our recent formation change has brought more defensive solidarity, we need to work harder with and without the ball.
We currently sit 14th in the table of distance covered and I wanted to put some figures down to put that in perspective. I have chosen a few teams to stack our efforts up against below:
Team distances covered:
*West Ham 1186.7km
*Chelsea 1222.8 km – (36.1km)
*Spurs 1245.5km – (58.8km)
*Burnley 1254.2km – (67.5km)
*Liverpool 1282.4km – (97.7km)
Figures in brackets represent the difference in distance covered
To think that our players have run almost 100km less than the Liverpool players over 11 games leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That is 8.9km per game.
I’m not saying that every team sets up, or desires, to play the high pressing super energetic football of Klopp, but that was a big part of our identity and success last season. It is something we need to get back as it’s not just crucial to playing well, it allows us to offer more when playing poorly or if suffering injuries. Our injury plagued patch from last season that saw us grind out a string of well-fought draws is a prime example.
Conclusion
With all said and done we got a draw and a point from a tough fixture on paper. Bilic would have learned from this and I’d be surprised if we didn’t see an improvement against Spurs. We will need to be at our best to get anything from that game, as well as our imminent fixtures beyond it, but I think we’ll come out fighting. There is a reason that we performed so well against the big teams last season, and that’s because they attack us, try to control the game and that suits us down to the ground. We can play our natural counter-attacking football and players like Payet and Antonio will get the space they have been denied in so many games so far this season.
I see the Stoke game as something we needed to get out of our system and now we can show everyone what we’re really about. With Carroll and (hopefully) Sakho back in the frame we’ll have more options up front and I think we’re in for a rollercoaster ride up to Christmas!
Let’s stay positive and look forward to an away fixture at the Lane where we can put a real dent in the season of an old foe!!
COYI