Tuesday night in Stoke
and we get to try and follow up our win against Leeds with three more points
from a trip to the crassly named Bet365 Stadium. It’s a good job that the
football world has identified gambling as a massive problem, isn’t it? I wonder
if the locals still call it the Britannia Stadium.
I was
surprised and somewhat alarmed by the passing of time when I noticed that this
is Stoke's fifth year in the Championship, having been relegated in 2018, in a
season where they started with Mark Hughes as manager and ended with Paul
Lambert. I am struggling to think of a less exciting duo of managers but then I
remember the two assclowns who we had at the tail end of last season. Mark Hughes is of course not the only connection regarding managers - both Saints and Stoke were managed by the genius that was Nathan Jones - statistically, he was the best manager in Europe you know. If that's true, it's a bit odd that both Saints and Stoke fans have the same "he was shit" opinion of him.
Prior to
Mark Hughes of course, Stoke had a period of pretty much unprecedented success
under Tony Pulis (Father of Saints legend, Anthony) who was there for the best
part of 10 years and built a squad and a team that reached an FA Cup final and
regularly bloodied the nose of more illustrious opponents. The days of Peter
Crouch, Marko Arnautović, Robert Huth, Ryan Shawcross and Rory Delap are all
long gone now, however. A quick scan of the squad now reveals no one who you
remember from Premier League days and that’s the danger when you stick around
in the Championship for too long, certainly if you stick around once the
parachute payments have run out.
Stoke look
nailed on for a mid-table finish this season and like ourselves, they have been
struggling to get any results at all recently but they achieved a superb win on
Saturday, coming from behind to overturn a 2-0 deficit at Bristol City, to win
3-2 in the last minute. This means they will be going into this game with some
confidence as well but regardless of their win on Saturday, we need to be
backing up our performance against Leeds and looking to turn them over, even
though a trip to whatever the stadium is called in Stoke, is not and never will
be easy.
Russell
Martin has hinted at changes after the Leeds game, not because of performances
but because we have three games in a week and I guess that’s fair enough,
though I do hope that the back four remains in place as that is clearly the
best combination. Stuart Armstrong and Charly Alcaraz are two of the starters
from Saturday who might have a problem playing twice in three days and
Kamaldeen Sulemana’s minutes have also been restricted due to fitness up until
now. I’m guessing that Shea Charles, Ryan Fraser and Che Adams can expect the
call if those three are rested. Come 7pm
on Tuesday, it turns out ‘twas but a bluff and it’s an unchanged team.
The opening
five minutes sets the tone for what is probably to come with Saints trying to
pass the ball but it’s not quite working and Stoke using every opportunity to
exert their physicality. They won in a
couple of corners at the start and they are predictably in-swingers on top of
the goalkeeper but we survive with a degree of comfort. An interesting development is the booing from
the two-thirds empty home sections when Smallbone touches the ball. He was on loan there last year and did pretty
well by all accounts so of course, that’s normal behaviour from the Stoke-tards.
One
intriguing battle is Sulemana up against ex-Liverpool fullback Hoever, who
after about five minutes is in the conversation for quite possibly the most
clueless looking defender I’ve ever seen playing at professional level. Every
time Kamaldeen runs at him, he is totally off-balance and just as he starts eating
dust, he has one tactic which is to grab hold of the Saints winger. People
complain about players going to ground too easily but to his credit, Sulemana
stays up three times in the opening 15 minutes and the referee is too clueless
to spot it. That’s why players throw
themselves down.
Sulemana does
have a chance to do something about it from a decent break with Adam Armstrong
feeding Alcaraz and though he’s trying to pick out Stuart Armstrong, the pass turns
into a good one for Sulemana and he tries to wrap his foot around it but puts
up a fucking balloon into the sparsely populated home end.
Ryan
Manning then has one of those little spells where he keeps giving the ball away
and his slip allows Leris to get down
the right hand side and sling a ball over which Lowe meets but it’s a simple
save for Baz. Manning is however getting
no help from his winger with Sulemana mixing up very good attacking play with
defending that can best be described as half-arsed. Actually, what’s less than half-arsed? Quarter-arsed? I guess that he is in the team to go forwards
and he produces a mazy run diagonally across the pitch before finding Adam
Armstrong and he tries to pass it into the far corner but Bournemouth loanee
Travers makes a decent one-handed stop and the referee decides that it’s a goal
kick, obviously.
Stuart
Armstrong picks up the ball on the left-hand side and runs diagonally towards
the edge of the box whilst Laurent is hanging onto his shorts and then his
shirt and down he goes and the referee gives a very obvious free-kick and
needless to say all the Stoke fans and players are complaining about something
that was 100% a foul. It’s just to the
left of centre, prime JWP territory and it’s either going to be Manning or
Stuart Armstrong to take it. Up steps Stu and it’s over the wall and spinning
away into the top corner past Travers despairing dive. What an absolutely
brilliant free-kick. Get in.
What’s that
goal was a pleasant surprise, there was also a second one when Sulemana pissed
past Hoever yet again he pulled him back yet again and the referee finally
decided it was worth a booking. By the time he pointed to the areas of the
pitch where all previous offences had taken place, there was no time left in
the first half and in we go.
To be
honest, that wasn’t great with a number of players underperforming and some
looking a little bit leggy as a result of the two games in three days. All of
the ones we knew had a bit of an issue with fitness, namely Alcaraz, Sulemana
and Stuart Armstrong all struggled a bit, brilliant free kicks aside. No change
the half-time however as we come out for the second half.
First
attack of the second half and it should be 2-0 as Alcaraz breaks from midfield
and finds Adam Armstrong on the right and it looks like he’s over run the ball
but he gets to it and fires over a perfect cross and as the ball is in the air
and I see who is heading towards, I ask myself the question… Have I ever seen
Stuart Armstrong score a header? No I haven’t and… I still haven’t as his downward header hits
the one defender McNally, stood in front of him and spins off a corner. Fuck.
We are much
the better side now and Downes sets off on a run through midfield, leaving a
couple of trailers in his wake and plays Sulemana in behind the full-back and
Hoever once again grabs hold of him but he has to let him go as he’s already
been booked and he has to score but gets no height on the shot (see A Armstrong
three days ago) and Travers comes out and makes the save. Meanwhile, Wilmot has
covered behind his keeper and managed to smash himself against the post and
eventually needs to be substituted. The resulting Manning corner is met about
10 yards out by Alcaraz with a stooping header that has no power on it and
straight through to the goalkeeper.
The
substitution of Wilmot means that there is a reshuffle and Hoever is moved out
of harms way and away from Sulemana. To be honest, if I was Russell Martin I
would be tempted to now put Kamaldeen right through the middle but instead, he’s
moved to the right wing and Armstrong moved to the left. We seem to lose a bit of momentum after this and Stoke are
having more possession but not really doing anything with it. It’s all got a
bit agricultural and scrappy with Stoke throwing as many crosses as they can
into the box and us not stopping any of the deliveries which luckily, are
nowhere near the strikers.
Stoke
actually play a couple of passes in our half and work opening for Johnson to
have a shot from the left and his effort flicks off of Harwood-Bellis and goes
through to Baz but before the ball gets the keeper, Ryan Lowe is making a run
across the penalty area and Bednarek has had a brain fart and produces a
challenge that really wouldn’t have been out place in the rugby World Cup
across in France at the moment. He has kept himself nice and low so there is no
possible head contact and has wrapped his arms round in a genuine attempt to
make the tackle and I don’t think anyone could really argue with that
interpretation from a Rugby Union perspective.
As Nigel Owens says – “this is not soccer” and that challenge certainly
wasn’t.
Substitutions a-plenty with basically a new forward line of Fraser, Mara and Aribo and three of them combine on the break with Fraser streaking forward in finding Slow Joe and he takes his time to find the correct pass to Mara wide on the left of the penalty area but with no defender inside and just a goalkeeper to beat he absolutely shags it wide with his left foot. Fucking shit effort.
With just a few minutes to go we bring on Mason Holgate for Will Smallbone, still getting booed by the Stoke-tards. Holgate has 10 minutes of injury time not to fuck up as we go three at the back. There’s a shot from Stoke substitute Berger from the edge of the box which is never going in and Baz pushes it away easy enough. Stoke don’t even seem to know how to feed the giant Wesley, who has come on as a sub.
We get our first real bit of aggro on the pitch as Wesley smashes into Downes as the ball is dropping and it’s a clear free-kick and for some reason it all kicks off in the middle of the park with Stoke Captain Johnson getting in Downes face and suddenly there about 15 players involved for some handbags. Lovely stuff and joking aside it’s great to see our players not giving an inch. Johnson picks up his second booking for his troubles but of course the referee had forgotten to give him a yellow earlier, for scything down a player to stop a break.
Ten minutes are up and hen the lino got in on the act of incompetence, when Slow Joe clearly won a corner, but he decided to give a goal kick. Hoofed upfield, cleared, final whistle and breathe, but not straight away because it’s all kicked off on the pitch at the end. Stoke goalkeeper Travers, who had been running to get involved in incidents that had absolutely fuck all to do with him for the last 10 minutes of the game, feels a slight shove from little Alcaraz and goes down like an embarrassing six-foot-three sack of shit and then pogoes back to his feet like he’s going to do something about it. Fucking idiot. More handbags, more Bednarek peacekeeping and away we go with the three points.
.webp)
A great three points against a tough team who gave us the sort of test I would not necessarily have expected us to stand up to but stand up to it we did with determination, not backing down, not taking any shit and being pragmatic and getting to the end with that vital and unexpected clean sheet. Stoke were extremely limited and for the last 20 minutes just played Pulis-ball, launching it into the mixer but for credit to everyone on the pitch in a black shirt for doing their bit. It wasn’t pretty but you do have to win games like this if you have designs on being anywhere near the top. Dug it out. Though it always felt nervy when the ball was getting piled into the mixer, to be honest we only really had one hairy moment when Bednarek for reasons known only to himself decided to play rugby against Ryan Lowe and we were very lucky to get away with that one.
Stokes fans were ... different. For starters there weren’t many of them with vast swathes of red seats all over the ground and they didn’t seem to realise that you can’t pull a players shirt, shorts, shoulder. It was probably only a few that booed Smallbone for having the temerity to go back to his parent club after a successful loan spell last year.
Yes, you can spit feathers about the referee not giving that penalty for Bednarek’s rugby challenge but didn’t think he was any worse than any other referee we’ve had other than that. Maybe incompetent, maybe lenient given the Hoever and Johnson situations. Hoever could’ve been booked five times by another ref and Johnson’s cynical foul wasn’t carded as we kept the ball for a minute or so and the ref clearly forgot to book him. Yes, if booked earlier he probably wouldn’t have confronted Downes near the end of the situation that had absolutely no reason for him to get involved in - but there you go. The booking the ref gave to Pearson was a bit harsh because there wasn’t much contact but at the end of the day, Pearson went flying in and wasn’t really in control so it was more luck than judgement that he didn’t really catch the player that badly and that’s the sort of thing the referees have been told to clamp down on. That’s not exactly a new interpretation either. You also can’t complain about the free-kick being awarded that lead to the winning goal and Alex Neil really should’ve watched it before he made a tit of himself on TV.
The best players for us all came in the back half of the team with Bednarek and Harwood-Bellis being the pick, along with Flynn Downes in the centre of midfield who barely misplaced a pass all game. Smallbone had a decent first half and KWP was good throughout. We were lacking a bit up front with neither Adam Armstrong or Sulemana providing much of a goal threat and whilst Charly Alcaraz did some great stuff dropping back into midfield to pick up the ball and get us moving, he looked very limited when he got near the Stoke goal. He needs to trust himself a bit more from the edge of the box and firing some shots like he did last season.
We need to talk about Stuart Armstrong. He made a colossal difference to the overall flow of the team when he played against Leeds and though he found it difficult today with the physical nature of the game and the fact that it was a second time in three days, he still had enough about him to pull out a free-kick that JWP would’ve been proud of. Absolutely magnificent and going in from the moment it left his foot. The king is dead. Long live the King.
The biggest congratulations however are reserved for Gavin Bazunu Who got the clean sheet that looked miles away and fair play to him. And the defenders have got to be looking to back that up on Saturday at home to Rotherham. There is no point beating Leeds and winning away at Stoke if you are not going to do the same at home to Rotherham.
Bring it on and Up the Fucking Saints.
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