Name: Matthew Etherington
Position: Left Winger
Date of Birth: 14/8/1981
Nationality: English
Place of Birth: Truro
Squad Number: 26
Nickname: Ringtone, Ethers, Matty
Former Clubs: Peterborough, Tottenham, Bradford, West Ham
Joined Stoke: 2009 (£2 million)
Considered to be the answer to the left wing problems that have haunted the club for years, Etherington is a pacy player and a good crosser of the ball who joined Stoke from West Ham in January 2009. With a history of gambling problems, he is another member of the Stoke squad with a dubious past and has said in interview that moving away from the bright lights of London has really helped him fight his demons.
Sometimes accused of lacking courage in his first season with Stoke, he always wins a large amount of free-kicks, which has led to the suggestion being made that it is a conscious tactic of Tony Pulis and Stoke to to Etheringtonto win free-kicks in dangerous areas, from which we can then use our enormous height to cause trouble. Full of pace and confidence after the start of the 2009/10 campaign however, he began to show that he can be immensely effective in all aspects of wingplay, including beating men and delivering from set pieces.
Just months into his Stoke career, rumours emerged that he was looking to leave the club, with Fulham supposedly sniffing around, and he was absent altogether from our final game of the 2008/09 season at Arsenal, though this has been put down to a bout of food poisoning and the player himself scotched the reports he is looking to move. He certainly showed no signs of being unsettled into the 2009/10 season, producing some of the best football of his career and establishing himself as one of Stoke’s key figures.
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