Invented in Stoke, Allegedly
Last year we went to Stoke when they had a fantastic home
record and we came away with a very creditable 3-3 draw which would have been a
win but for a last minute goal from Cameron Jerome, which though brilliant was
a goal the like of which he’ll never score again in his life. Mind you, he plays for Palace now so he’ll
probably never score any type of goal at all.
Stoke decided to dispense with Tony Pulis in the summer who
had achieved great things in making Stoke a proper established Premier League
club but had done it using a tactic which rhymes with Woooooof! The man the Stoke hierarchy decided upon to
take them forward is Mark Hughes who has been nothing but a disaster in his
last couple of managerial appointments.
In fact, Hughes messed up QPR so badly that even the managerial genius
of Harry Redknapp couldn’t save them even though he had 30 matches and about
£30 million quid (***extreme sarcasm alert***).
Hughes’ mission is not only of course to keep Stoke up but to change the
playing style. A quick look down the
list of players sees the names of Huth, Shawcross, Nzonzi and Crouch who have
an average height of about 7 foot so I’m guessing we shouldn’t expect too much
pretty football today. We all remember
Nzonzi from last year when he went to stamp on Corky, missed, got sent off and
then somehow got it overturned. My
favourite Shawcross moment was when he came on for England
against Sweden
and tried to push Zlatan Ibrahimovic about who responded by basically picking
up the Stoke hard man and throwing him out the way.
The media have this week been trying to sell Dani Osvaldo to
Juventus as he’s apparently unhappy and this will no doubt be fuelled further
by the fact that he’s still injured as a back injury of course means that you
are unhappy and leaving. Other than that
it’s been a love-in with all and sundry not having caught on to how good we
are, the pressing game, the defensive record, the English core, the academy etc
etc. All very nice and it’s an unchanged
team for us after the Fulham performance from last week with Guly dropping off
the bench and being replaced with the fit again Steve Davis.
Away we go and it’s a quiet start for about 11 seconds. The 12th second sees Asmir Begovic
launch the first of no doubt many wind assisted hooooof-bombs forward towards
Peter Crouch and the 13th second sees Dejan and Jose let it bounce
through to King Artur who can only watch from the penalty spot as it balloons
over his head and lands in the net.
There is only word that can do this justice and it begins with an
F. It takes something special to score
against us these days doesn’t it? My
personal experience of the goal is that I’m listening to the Radio Solent commentary
and I have no idea what’s happened. As
the ball goes back to Begovic they’re not talking about anything to do with the
action on the pitch and then it’s “we’ve just seen something remarkable here at
the Brittania”. I’m listening and whilst
I can guess that someone’s scored, I have no idea who and then Big Dave cuts in
with “Begovic has launched...” and I now know that we’ve let in some sort of
freak goal. That F word again.
They then start crapping on about what a lift it is for
Stoke and how we’re up against it and what a shock it will be to us. Hang on, it’s a complete fluke and we have 95
minutes to get it back. It’s just long
ball football after all, you bang it long towards a big target man and hope for
the best. As it happens this time, Stoke
hit the jackpot but this would happen once out of about a million I would
guess.
Still, the Stoke fans obviously think that relying on a 1 in
a million chance is better than trying to actually play some football so every
time Begovic gets it from here on in there are cries of ‘shoooooot’. All very amusing I’m sure. However, it really should be 2-0 on 6 minutes
as a corner given away by Big Vic’s tackle, is crossed into our box and it
falls to Shawcross who is six yards out in front of the goal. He waves a foot at it and in really shite
fashion is comes off his standing leg and goes wide. It was lucky it fell to him and not one of
their more technical players like Huth or Jonathan Walters. We have a corner of our own on 10 minutes
following a great run and cross by Lallana and the subsequent JWP corner is met
by Dejan Lovren at the back post and his header scrapes just wide of the post.
The tide, such as it was has now officially turned and Stoke
are resorting to the usual aimless shit up towards Crouch and Walters. So much for the brave new dawn eh Sparky. Big Vic is beginning to dominate in the middle
of the park and demonstrates some skill I didn’t know he had when he pulled off
one of those spin turn that Anders Svensson used to do, totally beating
Whelan. Unfortunately then he decided
that he’d earned the right to have a pop from thirty yards and shanked it well
wide.
On the half hour and the chances are coming. Sir Rickie brings down a ball which held up
in the wind and played J-Rod in but he had to hit it first time as the defender
came over and lashed it high over the bar.
From the next move the ball finds itself fed out to JWP on the right who
bent in a wonderful cross behind the defenders but just in front of J-Rod and
Sir Rickie who were both steaming into the box.
Merrington is giving it large about us trying to nick an
equalizer before half time and as I’ve always said about Dave, he’s a genius as
we break out via Clyne, Lallana and JWP with a passing move on the floor which
definitely confused the locals who thought we were cheating. JWP curled in a cross of Beckham-esque
precision onto the head of J-Rod who thumped a header downwards which bounced
up and over Begovic and landed in the far side of the net. I don’t give a shit whether he meant to
bounce it over the keeper or not but if he did then great and it he didn’t then
who can begrudge us a bit of luck after their goal. OK… can anyone tell me what the goal
celebration was all about cos that looked for all the world like a wanker
sign. Answers on a post card.
Half time and you can imagine it being like a Sunday League
team talk in our dressing room. What’s
Spanish for “we’ve got the wind in the second half lads and mind that dogshit
on the edge of the penalty area and no one’s allowed more than one slice of
orange and don’t forget to bang the mud off your boots at the end”
The second half starts the same at the first ended with
Saints on the attack and Shaw winning a corner when his cross was headed away
from Sir Rickie. Stoke immediately fashion a decent chance as Walters stabs a
pass through to Arnautovic whose blast at the far post is well parried away by
the flying King of Poland. As a rule though,
Stoke can’t get out of their own half now and then Clyne ran at Pieters who
slid in and blocked his cross away for a corner. It’s hit his arm as he’s slid in to block in
exactly the same way as Spurs got given one last week against Hull. I’m not saying that this is a penalty for a
second as I don’t think it is but on another day we could have been given it.
There’s a spot on pinball around the edge of the box ends
with Nzonzi tripping Morgan. Sir Rickie
deems that it’s a bit too close for him and in the event, JWP takes it and it’s
over the bar, flicking the roof of the net as it goes. A big chance wasted and in hindsight (which
is a wonderful thing) Sir Rickie should have just put his foot through it.
If there’s one player on the bench who is not suited to shit
conditions at the Brittania, it’s Gaston Ramirez but he’s on with the unlucky
J-Rod being the man making way. The
thinking is clear as we are having lots of possession but we need to get the
Great Gaston on the ball which at the moment is following a familiar
trajectory, being hurled into our box by Cameron and King Artur saves the resulting
effort from Arnautovic and then he and Dejan look down at the loose ball before
Dejan eventually pokes it out for a corner.
After a few minutes, Gaston finally gets himself on the ball
and sets off towards to Stoke goal. He
knocks it past Huth and into the open space but Huth, like the complete thug
that he is, cynically takes two steps towards Gaston and body checks him to the
ground. It’s a fucking disgraceful
challenge and regardless of whether he’s the last man or not, I wouldn’t
complain if defenders were sent off for this type of thing.
We have obviously entered the cynical zone in the Potteries as Shaw takes on Cameron who is nowhere near
the ball when he just wipes him out and gets booked. JWP’s ball into the box is lunged at by
Shawcross who misses with his leg and stops the ball with the palm of his
hand. Penalty all day long but it down
to the ref to see it and of course he doesn’t.
The linesman to be fair is on the other side so he’s never going to give
it as he’s looking across a crowded penalty area. However, the linesman had his moment straight
afterwards. 93 minutes are up and King
Artur launches it long, Sir Rickie brings it down, turns the defender and plays
in Gaston who is clean through but his shot is well blocked by the onrushing
Begovic. It’s a moot point but it’s not
offside – it’s not even close.
The final whistle goes and we have to take a point. It’s a decent point at the end of the day
especially given the freak goal conceded but there is a slight tinge of
disappointment because as it turns out, a win would have put us 2nd
in the league. Stoke away is never easy
though and they won’t lose many games at home this season. Mauricio focussed on the character of the
team to come back from the freak goal and dominate most of the rest of the game
in blustery conditions that don't lend themselves to decent football. A
quick look at the stats will tell you all you need to know about our problems
today though in that we had over 60% of the possession but only managed 2 shots
on target which is not enough. Mark
Hughes seemed very happy with the point and recognized how good we are
now. It would have been nice if someone
had asked him about Begovic now being their joint top scorer.
As for the respective keepers – well Begovic was cool about
it and didn’t want to celebrate too much and Artur was quite happy to be
interviewed and of course, the best bit was his vow to get those two points
back. To be honest, even if you blame
him for today’s goal, he’s still well in credit. I'm sure much will be made of our unfortunate friends down the road that Begovic used to play for them but let's remember thet he was mainly a sub for them and they had to pay Spurs a million quid in order to sell him to Stoke for next to nothing. Good work Peter Storrie. As to the blame game for the goal, when I played myself, I was a centre half and
I was always told to not let it bounce.
If the centre half heads the ball instead of letting it bounce then
there’s no chance of it ending up in our goal so to be honest, I’d say the
centre backs are at least as much to blame as the keeper. However, if you’re a park player like I was,
you’ve probably got a hangover so heading a big booming hoof upfield from the
opposition keeper probably isn’t on the ‘to do’ list. I somehow doubt though that Dejan and Jose had hangovers.
Next up in the league is Hull
at home but before that we have a trip to Sunderland in the Capital One Cup 4th
Round, a Sunderland now managed by our old
mate Gus Poyet. I believe that if we put
out a weaker 11 changes side in this then we will lose so I hope we keep the
number of changes to 5 or 6 for this game.
Maybe we’ll see both Osvaldo and Ramirez start the game and personally
I’d like to see Lovren and Wanyama playing.
Somehow, I don’t think they will be.
If I had to guess, it will be Davis ;
Chambers, Fox, Hooiveld, Yoshida, Cork , Davis , Rodriguez,
Ramirez, Guly, Lee...
Gus meanwhile has started how he means to go on with two of
his players getting sent off on Saturday so both Cattermole and Dossena won’t
be available to play against us. The
last time Gus was involved in a big knockout game, someone from his management
team took a shite on the opposition dressing room floor so I hope we send in
someone with a mop and bucket before the players go into the changing room on
Wednesday night. A quarter final tie at
home to Chelsea
awaits the winners. Bring it on.
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