Stoke were denied of their first win of the 2016/17 Premier League season right at the death against West Bromwich Albion as the two teams settled for a 1-1 draw at the bet365 Stadium. Joe Allen’s goal signalled the first time that the Potters had been leading a game this season, until Salomon Rondon’s header from a last minute corner crushed Stoke hearts. Mark Hughes’ Stoke are still unable to defeat a Tony Pulis team, who took his 1000th game as manager of a football club. The point gained did mean that Stoke clambered out of the bottom place in the league table but it wasn’t enough to leap out of the relegation zone for the first time since the team entered it.
Lee Grant, who replaced Shay Given in the team’s 2-1 loss against Hull City in the EFL Cup, retained his place in between the sticks. The back four remained unchanged from midweek, however Giannelli Imbula and Ramadan Sobhi, who was man of the match against Hull, lost out to the return of Glenn Whelan and Xherdan Shaqiri; the latter coming back after a long injury layoff.
With both the Mirror and Daily Express writing articles that verged on insulting it is time for the siege mentality to return to Stoke City. Ignoring the debate that surrounds our manager it is time for every fan to make the atmosphere for this crucial clash as confrontational, against the opposition of course, and loud as possible. Some excellent pieces have already been written on the atmosphere, and I direct you to read the Wizard’s and Duck Magazine’s take on this after you’ve read my thoughts.
The Brit bet is at its loudest when something goes against us. We have had smatterings of this so far this season, the stand out being after Mark Hughes was sent to the stands in the Spurs game, and as a whole the volume appears to be increasing. But much like Sparky’s squad the fans have not yet had their ‘90 minute’ performance, and for those attending the game it is time to give it your all for 90 minutes. It is well and truly time for the Bear Pit to return, and to truly bring it back an attitude of Stoke versus everyone is required. So to encourage this I have collected some light ‘encouragement’ for this attitude.
This is the most amount of pressure Mark Hughes has had to deal with as Stoke City manager. A disastrous league start – rock bottom with one point in five games, three goals scored and fourteen conceded – coupled with being knocked out of the EFL Cup has led to fans calling for his head, players having questions to answer and, for the first time in over three years, Peter Coates has had to publicly deny that he will sack his manager. It’s a very sensitive time for supporters as fans have widely varying views on how long the manager should be given before action should be taken. To mix in some method into this madness, we’ve grabbed two of the regular bloggers to have their say on the manager’s situation. We’ve got Tom Thrower, whose primarily Hughes Out; and Ben Rowley, whose Hughes In (at least for now). Both have given five reasons as to back their case, here they are:
A hugely important cup tie sees two Premier League sides, with drastically different aims come together in the Potteries. Hull we simply be aiming to avoid any injuries to first team players, whilst Stoke are in desperate need of a victory to kick start the season. Hardly the most glamourous of cup ties, the football on show may not be the most exciting as Stoke focus on trying to remain tight at the back due to recent vulnerability. Phelan has yet to finalise his contract as permanent manager at Hull and reports are suggesting a successful result will secure the role for him. Most would argue Stoke need the result more and hopefully this can force the Potters to claim a positive result.
Kick Off: Tonight @ 20:00
Odds (as of 12:45): Stoke 17/20, Draw 13/5, Hull 15/4
Four defeats in a row. Three of them extremely heavy ones. In any situation, good or bad, many of us adore talking about our Stoke City but it’s never really the same as having a good, old moan about everything that is going on, or not going on, with our football team. In the midst of one of our worst starts to a season in recent memory it hasn’t just been the fans that have had a lot to say about what is going wrong for the Potters.
The players, staff and even the big dog chairman, Peter Coates, have all had their say on this torrid patch of form we find ourselves in. HughesIn or HughesOut this blog is not; I merely aim to sift through the dirt to find the nuggets of gold from the plethora of quotes released by figures in the club over the past week.
Stoke fell to the mercy of yet another four goal hammering, losing 4-1 to a rather ordinary Crystal Palace side. Two goals from set pieces courtesy of James Tomkins and Scott Dann in the first 15 minutes were followed by a deflected goal from James McArthur and a long range bender from Andros Townsend. Marko Arnautovic managed to provide a glimmer of positivity with his goal in the last minute of the game but overall the players, club and supporters should be very ashamed of the performance yet again. The effort from the side today doesn’t deserve a match report but you’re getting one anyway, lucky you…
Mark Hughes made some rather high profile changes to the side that played against Spurs last week. Erik Pieters, Stoke’s only recognised left back, was dropped for Glen Johnson. Johnson, playing his first game of football in over seven months, slotted in at right back, shifting Geoff Cameron into a central role and Bruno Martins Indi filled the vacancy on the left. It was also recognised that the midfield trio of Glenn Whelan, Joe Allen and Giannelli Imbula wasn’t performing optimally; it was the £18m man who was the casualty and in came Bojan to offer a little more support to Wilfried Bony, who was well isolated on his debut.
Stoke play Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Sunday and, it’s a good chance for both teams to get some points on the board. Palace have had the better start to the season (it’s impossible not to have a worse one when comparing to Stoke) but both teams have been in similarly poor form over the last few months. What better way to get the lowdown on our opponents by speaking to our friends over at The Eagles Beak: the Palace fan site. So, without any further ado, let’s get into the questions!
Where do you see yourselves going this season? Hoping to push up the league or another cup final?
Another cup final would be just great wouldn’t it? It still hurts but us fans would absolutely love to be back on that stage again and have the time of our lives. In reality, I really hope we can chase that top ten finish of a couple of years ago which was a real underrated season for this little club from South London. Teams like us really do dream of a good cup run, it is something really special and to have that experience again would be truly fantastic. It really makes me wonder why clubs seek to devalue cup competitions.
It is a dark time for Mark Hughes fans. Despite destroying the initial Hughes Out campaign, their troops have driven pro-Hughes fans from the bet365 and have pursued them all across Staffordshire. Evading the dreaded too much passing backwards argument, a group of freedom fighters have established a new argument in favour of retaining Sparky. The evil Hughes Out campaigners are obsessed with using last year’s results, and have sent out thousands of remote tweets into the far reaches of the internet. . .
Okay now for the serious part of the article, it is misleading to suggest that last season’s bad run of form should come into the consideration for the current predicament. The main reason for this is the change in the squad, especially throughout the sides’ spine. Three totally new signings (Martins Indi, Allen and Bony) along with the return of Given and Shawcross from injury, have led to a completely new spine for the side, relatively to the one that ended last season. This suggests that there is no need to be overly concerned with our opening performances and they can be put down to the traditionally slow start that we have.
Stoke have been embarrassed yet again in the Premier League following their latest thumping courtesy of Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday afternoon. Heung-Min Son bagged a brace with Dele Alli and Harry Kane contributing equally to the four goals that their team managed to fire past a, quite frankly, inept Stoke side. It’s a repeat of the result in the corresponding fixture back in April of last season and there’s been no sign of improvement from the Potters, despite having a Summer to recover and a transfer window to strengthen. Once again, refereeing controversy surrounded Stoke once again and Mark Hughes was sent to the stands as a result of his displeasure.
Shay Given kept his place in goal with Jack Butland recovering from his operation on his long-term injury. Geoff Cameron replaced Phil Bardsley on the right side of defence with new signing Bruno Martins Indi plugging the Philipp Wollscheid sized gap. The midfield three of Glenn Whelan, Joe Allen and Giannelli Imbula started again as they did against Everton. Jon Walters replaced Mame Diouf on the right wing with Wilfried Bony, on loan from Manchester City, was picked ahead of Peter Crouch up top.
Beginning to become a bit embarrassing, isn’t it? Today (Or yesterday depending on when this gets put up), a second half capitulation from Stoke saw Spurs as the away side romp to a 4-0 victory. After what seemed like a very promising first 20 minutes, Stoke decided that they wanted to make my job a rather easy one, and once the first goal had gone in there was never really any sign of us getting back into the game.
Usually when I sit down to write these blogs I have to take some time, usually about 10 or 15 minutes just to finalise what the five points that I want to pick apart are… not the case today. The following five issues with today’s game flow right off the tongue, so let’s not waste any more time and get straight down to it…
