Zzzzzzzzzzz!
Midweek,
Stoke.
Having
had a dreadful start to the season, Stoke have been improving and now sit on
the same amount of points as us for the season so this is officially a
mid-table clash. Mark Hughes is still in
charge there and must be one of the longest serving managers in the Premier
League now. His teams are usually attack
minded so we should be in for a good game that will suit us. After all, we only look any good when teams
attack us.
This
is our first midweek league game for a while so, bearing rotation in mind, it
will be interesting to see what we do.
Maya Yoshida has been the midweek centre back for example, usually in
place of José Fonte. After Be’er Sheva, Claude
bought himself a bit of good will with the win against Boro so he’ll be keen to
keep that going. I always think that
this is one of the more unappetising trips of any season so a point is always
decent here.
The
teams are announced and what do you fucking know, Fonte is playing, adding more
fuel to the debate. There is obviously
no issue with him playing 3 games in a week but isn’t it odd that the first
time it happens is when there’s no Europa League game. There obviously was an issue there as either José or the club didn’t want him
cup tied for the Europa League. Fat chance
of us ever finding out who instigated that one.
I for one will never believe it was a coincidence. Elsewhere, Martina continues with Cédric
unwell and Bertrand returns in place of McQueen. Midfield sees Davis and JWP ahead of Hojbjerg
and Clasie (despite Claude saying Clasie had had his best ever game for us
against Boro). In the non-functioning
part of the team, Redmond and Long come in for Redmond and J-Rust with The Bouf
keeping his place.
Stoke
create the first chance as Allen, a player who is defying my view of him which
is that he’s shite, getting onto the end of a ball played through by Shaqiri
and shooting low for Fraser to save with his feet. The resulting corner is half cleared out to
Charlie Adam who attempts an overhead kick and launches it into the crowd. It’s like watching an elephant trying to do
gymnastics only less gracefully.
I’m
still not sure which is Sofiane Boufal’s strongest foot. All I know is that he’s scored a pearler with
each for us so far and he has a go with his right today after picking up
Redmond’s pass after a decent run but it slices off his boot and well wide. He then picks it up on the left and tries to
trick his way past 4 defenders and loses it.
Whilst Adam is pondering which Saints player to kick next or what
flavour pie he’s going to eat at half time, Boufal nicks the ball off him again
and shoots at the far post but Grant gets down well to save. It really is all about Boufal, picking up the
ball in midfield and running at the back-pedalling defence. Another ball finds Long but he lets it run
across himself to the left and he smashes it well wide with all the conviction
of a man who hasn’t scored for 9 years.
Stoke
fans have always been a strange bunch and the latest instalment is justa rounf
the corner. JWP gets challenged in the penalty
area and just falls over. He doesn’t appeal,
doesn’t gesture to the ref and he gets straight up and plays on. This is the cue for the Stoke fans to go off
on one like they’ve just been on the end of one the game’s great
injustices. A minute later we win a
throw in and it goes to Boufal.
Arnautovic steams in with a stamp tackle and takes Boufal off above the
knee. After consulting with the lino who
is right next to the incident, out comes Anthony Taylor’s red card and after 27
minutes, the man who used to have a man bun is off. Well he is when he can be arsed to drag
himself off like the fucking prima donna shit haircutted Drama Queen that he
is. It’s a cauldron of inbread noise now
as Bertrand swings in the free kick which Virgil is close to but Grant gathers
well.
We
were well on top before the twat got sent off but the momentum has gone. Stoke have gone rigid 4-4-1 and the inbreds
are giving it loads and they clearly don’t know who their enemy is. JWP is still getting it for his non-dive and
other than that, they seem to think they’re booing Boufal for getting his knee
in the way of Arnautovic’ studs but they’re instead booing all the black
players in what I hope is just ignorant mistaken identity.
Half
time and my prediction is in – sideways and backwards and 0-0.
As
the last ten has been flat, I’m hoping to see a difference and there is more
intensity. JWP incurs the wrath of the
inbreds again by dancing round Whelan who carts him over right on the edge of
the box. It needs a blast rather than a
chip and Virgil casually strokes it into the wall. On the hour we have two
decent chances a First Bourfal cuts in from the left and his curler is on its
way past Grant only for Martins Indi to head off the line. We recycle and it comes back to Bertrand who
hammers it from the edge of the box and Grant reacts superbly with a strong
wrist to keep it out. Great save.
Bastard. Doesn’t he know that we can’t fucking
score. If we get a decent effort in at
least have the grace to leave it!
Redmond
has faded from the game and is replaced with Tadic and Long’s drought goes on
as he’s replaced by J-Rust. It’s worth
pointing out that J-Rust has at least scored this season so by Long’s standards
he’s positively prolific. He gets a
chance to prove it as Davo wins the ball in midfield , slots it through to
Boufal on the right of the area. He could
shoot but instead he weights a superb ball behind the last defender and J-Rust
is a foot out and foot is the key thing here… he goes for it with the wrong
fucking one, misses it and it passes behind his foot and away. Fucking hell it’s even worse than the wrong
foot miss on Sunday against Boro.
The
rest of the game just passes by with no excitement or anticipation that we
might score at all. Martina is lobbing
in hopeful balls from the right with not much quality and not many players in
the middle. He eventually comes off for
McQueen as we have no other attacking option on the bench but nothing chances. We play it around on the edge of the box, Stoke
drop back and eventually it ends up with José Fonte and we start again,
sideways, backwards, into the box, back out of the box again, then Stoke get a
foot to it and Stoke welly it miles.
That’s it, 94 minutes, 0-0, comfortable point for Stoke. Clueless shite.
Nearly
70 minutes against 10 men and we can’t score.
Is anyone surprised? I’m
not. We have non-scoring strikers and no
midfielders willing to run into the box.
Stoke defended well from set-pieces and in open play and unless Boufal
conjured something out of nowhere, we were never going to score. It’s happened to many teams before but it was
just crushingly predictable that it happened to us. It would probably have happened had they gone
down to 9 – they’d have defended the edge of the box and we’d have been clueless.
I
think we caused the keeper to make one decent save and then there was the
J-Rust miss. Two misses from two feet
out in two games and in both cases, he’s gone for it with the wrong foot. It’s not a case of him trying to use his
strongest foot (which lots of players do) but it’s just using the wrong
foot. Use the inside of the foot
farthest from the ball, not the outside of the one nearest. It’s. That. Bastard. Simple.
It
looks likely though that J-Rust will be getting opportunities to put it right
as Stoke are bleating about an alleged Shane elbow on Martins Indi so it looks
like that’ll be investigated. There
seems to be an inability to accept that Arnautovic deserved to get sent off so
they want to make sure we get a player banned as well. If you’re so aggrieved, why don’t you appeal
the red card you got you arseholes… and watch the ban go from 3 matches to 4
for a frivolous appeal. No matter how
much they’d like to think they’ve advanced from the Pulis days – they’re still
twats.
It’s
not Claude’s fault that he has a squad with only one striker who can score
goals in it and he’s injured. Is it Claude’s fault that we get no players in
the box? Does he tell Davo and JWP not
to run ahead of the ball? Does he tell
the wingers to stay wide? Does he tell us to keep playing sideways and
backwards? Does he tell the midfielders
to feed it into the box and then for the receiving player to pass it straight
back out again? If the answer to any of
these questions is yes then he needs to adapt the way we are playing. If no then it’s the players fault for not
being brave enough to try and make things happen. This is why Boufal stands out like an oasis
in the fucking desert at the moment because he doesn’t play the percentages, he
doesn’t think first and foremost about keep-ball.
To
my mind when a full back is crossing the ball you should have at least 3
players in the box – the striker, the winger from the other side and one of the
midfield players. I don’t really know
any more whether it’s down to the players themselves or the manager.
It’s
an opportunity missed and that’s why there’s been so much anguish over a result
that most of us would have settled for before the start. Next up is a trip to Bournemouth where we
failed to turn up last year. Despite us
being in Europe and having a ropey old time with scoring goals, we’re still
above them in the league but you hear all about it if they’re above us for 5
minutes. Time to put them in their place
but at the moment, I have to say that I’m not confident.
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