There are a few things in life that I’m a bit apathetic about – Marmite (I don’t love it or hate it, actually), wearing shoes around the house, phone apps and West Ham defender Guy Demel.
I’ve always been a bit neutral about him. I wasn’t his biggest fan last season, but this season he’s been consistent and seems to be putting a lot of effort into his performance. This morning, news broke which made me realise that I may have underestimated this man.
It turns out that Guy Demel was actually something of a hero for his performance against Everton last Saturday. Not only did he do a great job defensively, but he did it in spite of spending the week leading up to the game sick with a fever and tonsillitis.
Wait, what? Guy “I shut down Everton and they only scored when I was subbed” Demel was in bed all week with swollen glands?
Turns out this man played 80 minutes of a professional football match while he was sick. I got the norovirus last week and had to take two days off sick (and I only work from home, mind) because I have the strength of a wet tissue, and yet this guy played a football match and managed to give 100% and close down Leighton Baines?
In rather humble fashion, Demel explained that he: “came back Thursday and trained on Friday, but it’s never easy when you take antibiotics. It is not an excuse, I tried my best and I tried to do my job, but I was kind of disappointed because I had to leave my team-mates on the pitch.” (London 24)
Truthfully, I didn’t notice anything amiss with his performance. We use the phrase “unsung hero” a lot cause, you know, Mark Noble, but how has Demel managed to stay so under the radar this season? Have we properly acknowledged the contribution Demel has made to the squad this season?
This season he’s really come into his own— he looks solid at the back and has started for 12 of our seriously impressive 13 clean sheets. He’s also impressed with his attacking form this season. He’s brilliant at taking the ball straight down towards the corner flag, dragging the defender wide, and then quickly sliding the ball past him— which time and time again ends up being one of our best ways of getting the ball in the box.
Taking him off opened the door for Romelu Lukaku’s goal, and to be honest, we were lucky it didn’t open the floodgates as well. It would appear that even having everyone sans Adrian parked inside the box wasn’t as effective as having just Demel in there.
Will he ever be man of the match? Only time will tell, but I gained a lot of respect for the man after knowing what he went through to produce a top draw performance against a difficult club. If he can do the same against a Stoke City team that (incredibly) has already collected the scalps of Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester United— it might be time to consider him for the accolade.
What have you thought of Demel’s performance this season? Do you think he’s been underrated? Let us know below or tweet me @makingthemarrow
I’ve admired him all season, and noticed that after Joey O’Brien got injured at Chelsea, we won 4 games straight. The combination of Guy & McCartney works far better. I cannot work out for the life of me, why on earth Sam made the stupid mistake of replacing Guy so late in the game, when everyone was settled & had it all worked out. I’ve always respected Winston’s presence, but in this case against Everton, there was no need to bring him on. No offense Winston, but we had it all sorted. Ask Sam. He cost us the point on Saturday with his stupid decison to replace Guy so so late in the game. That was 1 point lost, because of Sam’s boof headed decison!!! And do you think he will admit that? No way. It’s always the teams fault!