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Shea joins Birmingham City on short-term loan

BrekSheaStokeCityWarmup1 (Getty)

By DAN KARELL

Brek Shea has agreed to move down a division to see some regular playing time.

The U.S. Men’s National Team winger completed an emergency three-month loan to Birmingham City in the League Championship, with the deal running through Dec. 13 with no recall option. According to Birmingham manager Lee Clark, Shea was brought in after a string of injuries to the team’s wingers left him in need of some new recruits.

“I’ve been chasing Brek for a while and actually wanted to sign him permanently at the start of the season,” Clark told bcfc.com. “He impressed me when he played for Barnsley here at St. Andrew’s on New Year’s Day and, given our recent injuries, it made sense to make this loan move, importantly with no recall clause being something that I have stressed all along.”

Shea spent a little more than two months in 2013 at Barnsley in the Championship, looking for playing time that wasn’t available under Mark Hughes at Stoke City. He made eight appearances with the relegation-plagued Barnsley but was sent back to Stoke after making an inappropriate gesture toward his own fans during a match.

The 24-year-old winger has only made three English Premier League appearances since joining Stoke in January 2012, all as a substitute. He earned his 27th cap for the USMNT on Sept. 3, coming off the bench in the 1-0 victory against the Czech Republic.

Luckily for Shea, he won’t be alone as an American in the Birmingham squad. The roster already includes former U.S. Under-20 defender Will Packwood and USMNT pool player Jonathan Spector.

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What do you think of this news? Glad to see Shea find a new club? How do you see him fitting into Birmingham City?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

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    Reply
  2. I hope the best for him. We were ALL Brek Shea fans in the last couple years…he’s lost his form for many reasons, but he’s still young. He could be a big contributor in the future if he gets it together in the next year.

    Reply
  3. Having seen him firing on all cylinders at FCD, I know that he’s got a high ceiling and can be a valuable addition to any team. That said, he’s one of the most mercurial players I can think of…when he’s not in form, he’s not good. When he is in form (which hasn’t happened for a little while now), he’s really on and makes dynamic runs, can link up well, and creates chances for himself and others.

    Reply
    • He only has one cylinder and it is time to get real about his lack of soccer intelligence. His age limits his ability to improve . His problem is he thinks he is a good player. he is not.

      Reply
      • he’s only 24, sir……….. he still has time to “put all the pieces together.” a 28 year old winger (by next WC) isn’t a bad thing by any means, actually can be seen as a players “prime” due to maturity. jozy is another example. he’s still on 24. had a good year and a half in the Eerie and is still growing. by 28 these players and others could have seasoned nicely (Boyd, Aron, etc.)

  4. His size is a negative .Big and clumsy with poor technique and a poor attitude will get you plenty of bench time. Sad to say he is strictly a MSL type player.

    Reply
      • i concur, to me, his problem to me is when he runs at an opponent he does so too long. he must learn the purpose of taking on a defender is to create a passing lane or something. he fails to see them sometimes and just pace dribbles to know where. i like brek and think he can ACTUALLY be the super-sub he’s sold as, he’s just not there yet.

        i guess another way to describe him is having blinders on once he takes on someone. he needs to be better aware of his teamates during his attacking. he knows how to pass, can shoot as decent as the next, just needs to tie all his skills together.

        blah blah blah brek brek brek

  5. Love his size and potential, but starting to sour on him as he cant get playing time, and sucked for the nats in Czech. Hopefully playing time improves his game, but we will see.

    Reply
  6. This man needs to be a tad bit humble. Forget about how he looks and concentrate on relearning the game at the level he thinks he should play.

    Reply
    • Where did you get THAT assumption? I can’t stand it when people make this assumption when they don’t have any inside information (or do you). He’s rusty and unfinished. He just needs to play CONSISTENTLY, somewhere.

      Reply
      • I agree. There were reports that Shea impressed the Stoke staff, among others, with his preseason work effort and play. He needs game time in non-friendlies to show where he truly stands in his career. I am rooting for him.

      • He is not consistent because he lacks the professional mentality, he is rusty because he can’t get playing time and he can’t get playing because his soccer IQ is close to nothing…

      • jsocks,

        “he can’t get playing because his soccer IQ is close to nothing…”

        And your basis for writing this is what exactly?

        Shea does not have Xavi’s or Messi’s or Pirlo’s soccer IQ but it does not mean he has “close to nothing”.

        He has enough to get Stoke to buy him. He has had his adjustment issues but I notice Stoke have not been eager to cut him loose completely, so it is clear they see something in him.

        And yes they are humble Stoke City , who are managed by that noted Anti American Journey man manager Mark Hughes. By the way Anti American Mark took Stoke to a 9th place finish in the EPL last season, their best in a very long time. I think you will find that anti American Stoke had the most starts by a USMNT outfield player of any team in the EPL last season.

        That is 9th place in the arguably the toughest league in the world.

        If you don’t think getting into their lineup is a LOT harder than getting into the lineup of FC Dallas or any MLS team then you are either an extreme homer or you are just this side of naïve.

      • Bubble? What bubble?

        For some time now, the man has been making a very nice living playing professional soccer at a much higher level than any of us will ever be able to.

        If that is what “very little soccer intelligence” does for you then I’m sure there are lots of people just waiting to sign up for it.

      • I think jumping to conclusions without supporting evidence has become the national pastime, both in sports and politics.

  7. I like the build of Shea as a soccer player, but every time I watch him play I see him make a strong run and in the final third he trips over the ball or blunders. Not a fan of him on the nats

    Reply
    • he’s lost confidence and form of late (or for the past year or so), but he wasn’t always like that, even with the nats. there’s a reason he was klinsmann’s supersub for a while–he always seemed to make things happen.

      Reply
    • If you want to be a soccer player and show well, it helps to, you know, play some. My personal experience from periods where I was less the coach’s pet is you either want to go in 100 mph and “show him” or you are an unconfident wreck that’s lucky to kick a ball straight. To play well you need to be more in the middle. Confident and playing game speed. Not forcing things but not behind the speed of the game either.

      Reply
  8. He needs to take advantage of this loan…hopefully to get another loan or get bought by someone else in January. He’s at a dead end at Stoke.

    Reply
    • He shouldn’t want another loan to someone else. He should want his loan at Birmingham extended to full season if he’s is playing. One does not want to go to different places every half season!

      Reply
  9. He actually joined Stoke in January 2013. Regardless, his career has been derailed for a while now and hopefully this will get him back on track.

    Reply
    • It sounds like a good opportunity because the coach seems to like him and they have numbers issues. He needs to convert this chance and hopefully show well enough to be sold there in the winter.

      But repeated loans would not be a good sign.

      Reply
      • +1 Playtime is over. Which had really been naptime. This is a very serious test and it probably doesn’t have an outcome besides an “A” or and “F”… he’s on his way out of England at the moment and that’s fine really with me, but he’s still going to lose a significant amount of time doing that. This is the one opporutnity he will get to change that. And the standard is high— Simply stated, Brek has gotta displace someobody. It’s really not enough this time to just “show well” or have a couple of credible non-scoring performances. Birmningham has to be able to say “What the f*ck have we been doing with these other wingers?” by the end of the loan period.

        So there you go, Brek… go get ’em. Show them why you’re allowed to have that haircut. Show me, for that matter.

      • “So there you go, Brek… go get ‘em. Show them why you’re allowed to have that haircut. Show me, for that matter.”

        Good for Brek.

        I’ve seen probably at least a few hundred men and women with Brek hairdos. So how can they possibly justify their styling to you and the entire human race?.

      • That is a bit of an extreme conclusion. Sounds to me like he could play in the Championship League consistently but Mark Hughes apparently doesn’t want to sell him.

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