Abdoulyae Faye Appreciation – He Comes From Senegal, He’s Going To Kill You All

  Stoke centre-back Abdoulaye Faye has today revealed how much he is enjoying his time at the club and how he feels the Potters fans are the best there are. The Senegalese Colossus, one of five in the SCFC squad said, “I’m so happy at Stoke and the support is unbelievable. I want to thank the fans. I love them. They are the best in the Premier League. For 90 minutes they don’t stop supporting their club. At Newcastle it was ok. When you won, the support was there, but it would change if you played for 30 minutes and didn’t score. At Stoke that doesn’t happen. Whether we win or lose, the support is there.” As he has taken the time to praise the Stoke fans, and as it is his 31st birthday tomorrow, I thought I’d take the time to write about how important he is to the club, and how much we appreciate him.

Faye – wants to give the Stoke fans a big hug

  Faye has been a fixture in the Stoke side since joining from Newcastle United in the summer, and has been made captain in recent weeks, a role in which he has thrived, in the absence of Andy Griffin, who seems to have lost his place in the starting eleven for good, in both senses of the phrase. Stoke currently sit seventeenth in the Premier League table, two points clear of the relegation zone on 25 points. While that’s hardly a great position, I can confidently say that we would be ten points worse off without the contribution of Faye, whose dominant displays have meant he has become the only candidate for our player of the season award.

  Frequently, Faye rescues Stoke from bad defensive situations. Just last Saturday he saved us a near certain goal with a perfect last gasp tackle to dispossess Portsmouth’s Peter Crouch who had got in behind the Stoke defence. Most telling though, is the fact that he often doesn’t have to make these sort of challenges, as he rarely allows any of his opponents a clear site of goal, consistently winning battles both aerial and on the ground against some of the league and world’s best forwards.

Faye consistently gets the better of high class opposition

  Perhaps surprisingly, given my title for this article, which highlights his impressive physical form and committed style of play, Faye is also an extremely skilled player with the ball at his feet. In a team that all too often simply hoofs the ball from back to front, he shows a brilliant calmness to repeatedly play his way out of trouble, systematically beating opposing strikers with flashes of skill or relieving defensive pressure with a quality pass. One day I’m sure he’ll get it wrong, lose the ball and cost us a goal, but until that happens, the entertainment value of watching one of our centre-backs outdo strikers with skill is one of the best things about watching Stoke at the moment.

  His coolness under pressure also translates to the other end of the pitch. He has scored twice in 25 Stoke matches this season, not a bad record for a centre-back, and a excellent one when you consider the number of clear chances he has had to score goals, that being two. The first of his goals for Stoke came with Stoke 2-1 down in second half injury time away at Faye’s old club Newcastle. In the oppressive atmosphere of his former stomping ground, and so late in an important game, when the ball dropped to Faye it would have been perfectly understandable for him to panic and lash at the ball. He didn’t though, instead coolly stroking the ball inside just inside the post to give us a point.

  If scoring such a vital goal endeared him further still to the Stoke fans, which it undoubtedly did, what he did next made us positively adore him. With his finger on his lips to silence his former supporters, he proceeded to go mental, charging to celebrate with the Stoke fans at the other end of the pitch, stopping only to take the congratulations of the Stoke bench on the way. A display of passion like this, and against a former club, made that one of the most memorable moments of the season as a Stoke fan, and a truly wonderful one to be a part of.

 
Faye scores and celebrates his goal at Newcastle

  Also very pleasing is the partnership he has formed at centre-back with Ryan Shawcross. At 21, everyone at Stoke has very high hopes that Shawcross will become a top defender in the future, but as he struggled in our 3-1 defeat at Bolton on the first day of the season, we all thought he had a lot still to learn. Faye didn’t play that day, having only signed for Stoke the evening before, but he has played alongside Shawcross regularly ever since the England Under 21 player regained his place in the side in October. Playing alongside Faye, Shawcross has come into his own as a player, looking every bit the Premier League defender. The positive effect Faye seems to have on his teammates is yet another reason, should we ever need one, to love him.

  You would have thought a player with all the attributes I have waxed so lyrical about above would set you back a tidy amount to buy, but perhaps the most amazing thing about Faye is that at just £2.25 million, he was an absolute bargain. Anthony Gardner, a centre-back not a patch on Faye, was signed for £2.5 million by Hull this summer, £250,000 more than Faye cost Stoke, and has struggled for games there since because of poor form and injury. It’s amazing to think that Wayne Bridge, possibly the worst aerial defender in the Premier League recently cost Manchester City more than three times what Stoke payed for Faye.

Faye once ate a whole packet of sleeping pills – it made him blink

  Faye is, of course, not the only important player at Stoke, new signings Thomas Sorensen and James Beattie are players who spring to mind when I consider who will be key in our fight for Premier League survival, along with players like Shawcross, and experienced heads like Faye’s Senegalese compatriots Salif Diao and Amdy Faye (no relation). It would though, as I have mentioned above, be a travesty if anyone but Faye wins our player of the year award this season and we are very lucky to have such a good player in our squad. Abdoulaye, we’re glad you’re happy at Stoke, we’re delighted to have you here. Let’s hope you can continue playing as well as you have been this season for many years to come.