The Top 5 Conclusions from Sunderland 1-1 Stoke City 06.05.13

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1)    A good result, achieved in deflating style

It didn’t look like it was going to be a classic. Sunderland hadn’t won on a Monday night since 2001, while the last Stoke player to score at the Stadium of Light was Carl Hoefkens in 2007, in a team that contained the likes of Darel Russell and Jonathan Fortune.

Sure enough, it wasn’t a classic. Two fairly poor sides turned up for 45 minutes apiece, each scrambling in a scrappy goal from a corner. It’ll be remembered, if at all, for Craig Gardner’s horror challenge on Charlie Adam, but nothing else. On the plus side, if safety wasn’t already secured with last weekend’s victory over Norwich, this point – only our 13th of a possible 54 away points this season – all but clinches it.

A team heading into a game on the back of a thrashing is always a bit of an unknown quantity (we picked up four points out of our next six after being drubbed 7-0 at Stamford Bridge three years ago). Sunderland were without key players like Sessegnon, Fletcher and Cattermole, but you got the feeling that Paolo Di Canio wasn’t going to let his players embarrass him again after the previous week’s drubbing at Villa Park.

Nevertheless, the Mackems looked brittle and low on confidence in the early going. Stoke’s team, barring the additions of Wilson and Whitehead for Wilkinson and Whelan, was otherwise the same one that had won its last two games and again started brightly. Just 10 minutes had elapsed when Jon Walters managed to bundle in Charlie Adam’s corner at the second attempt to give us the lead.

The goal dealt a psychological blow to the home side and we would control the first half in a way we rarely get to do away from home. Although chances were customarily thin on the ground, we kept the ball pretty well by our standards, slowed the game down, and the movement of Cameron Jerome up front forced the Black Cats to defend fairly deep. It was Jerome who had our next best chance of the half, heading Adam’s fine centre wide, while the ex-Birmingham man also managed to pull a decent ball back across the box only for Peter Crouch to not get the connection he needed.

Frustration in the Sunderland camp began to surface as both teams traded fouls and poor challenges. Whitehead’s inevitable booking was picked up early on with a cynical pull-back on Adam Johnson. Adam too got away with a couple of late tackles on James McClean. It was then that Gardner inexplicably opted to lunge in at the Scot as the two went for a 60/40 in Adam’s favour by the dugout – much to Tony Pulis’ chagrin. Going over the top of the ball and thrusting his studs into Adam’s ankle, Gardner, a dead ringer for Hank Hill’s son in King of the Hill, left referee Lee Mason with no option. That boy ain’t right.

Old pumpkinhead never needs much provocation to book  Stoke players though and as the crowd bayed for blood Steven Nzonzi was yellow carded. Whitehead’s next foul in the final third was penalised with nothing more than a free kick, but you sensed we’d be lucky to maintain our one man advantage.

Nevertheless, we saw out the half comfortably, restricting Sunderland to pot shots from distance, with Johnson’s tame shot into Begovic’s arms their only notable effort of the opening period.

Unfortunately the second half was an entirely different affair. The 10 men of Sunderland, presumably given a rocket by Il Duce himself, were a different beast and soon got themselves on the front foot. We lacked the composure we’d had before the break, with Geoff Cameron, on at half time for Marc Wilson, looking particularly panicky, giving the ball away with his first two touches. Now we were the ones reduced to pot shots. A promising counter saw Jerome feed Nzonzi, who took the ball on and fired in a decent effort that was nevertheless comfortably saved by the young Belgian. When the ball was pulled back to Jerome just inside the box, he was quickly closed down, his fierce shot cannoning into John O’Shea.

The Black Cats fired a warning shot across our boughs when O Shea’s shot was cleared off the line by Whitehead, but it was only a stay of execution; three minutes later they won a corner from which O’Shea, steaming in at the far post unattended, forced home the equaliser.

The impetus was now with the hosts, although with the useless Danny Graham leading the line we were rarely in any overt danger. Johnson’s influence grew and he danced his way through a couple of times to further test our keeper. N’Diaye also began to make a greater impact in a game that our midfield, as strange as it seems to actually articulate, had previously dominated.

We had pretty much run out of ideas with 20 minutes to play. Adam, as he does, went for the spectacular having spotted Mignolet off his line but his attempted 40-yard lob was way off beam. We then took him off for Etherington, which only rendered us less potent. Jones was introduced for the anonymous Crouch, too late to make an impact.  Sunderland had been galvanised by adversity while Stoke neglected to make the advantage count, settling in for a point all too readily. At least we got it.

A good result result then, as an away point in the Premier League almost invariably is. But to come away with just the one having been a goal and a man up is still slightly disappointing.

 

2)  First half positives

After an encouraging first half, it was shaping up to be a classic away performance – score early and don’t give the home side a sniff. Having scuffed one in after 10 minutes, we saw a Stoke side that was a cut above the one we usually see on our travels. Though Sunderland were initially awful, it was still a mature and confident start to the game. Chances still came at a premium, but we had more possession than usual, and kept the ball out of the danger areas effortlessly. By the mid-point of the half we’d managed to turn the home crowd against the team, and Gardner’s dismissal was one borne of frustration as his team could not find any way into the contest.

We actually used our midfield, with Nzonzi and Whitehead completing more passes than anyone else on the park, and players like Marc Wilson and Charlie Adam also looking tidy and comfortable on the ball. Cameron Jerome led the line well, winning corners and throws in good areas with his relentless chasing, the Sunderland back line unnerved by his pace and physical presence.

On the strength of the last three games (and the seven point haul they’ve produced), we have actually looked a surprisingly balanced side. Against all the odds, the experiment with Adam in a wide role has been something of a success. The Scot has managed somehow to find space and freedom out there to ping in some dangerous balls and exert an influence, and his delivery is clearly improving as his assist from the corner underlined. I’ve read criticism of his tendency to shoot from any angle and range, but if there’s nothing else on (and there so often isn’t for us) then why not? The analogy about the lottery and buying tickets spring to mind.

Jerome and Crouch, with the former just ahead of the latter, have complemented each other quite well, and though Crouch was poor at the Stadium of Light Jerome does provide that threat on the counter and allow the option of the ball into the channels, which Adam has looked for a number of times.

In what has been, all things considered, a rather gloomy season, the first half did provide an unexpected number of reasons to be cheerful.

 

3) Second half negatives

Of course, all that good stuff dissipated almost as soon as the second half kicked off and we were stuck with the Stoke we’ve seen for much of the season – one that treats a football like a hand grenade, has no ideas beyond hoofing it and isn’t especially interested in winning a game that’s there to be won.

Sunderland’s own improvement from the relegation-haunted shell of a team they’d been before the break shouldn’t be overlooked as a factor in the second half’s change of complexion, as we have seen ourselves this season that a team reduced to 10 men can be stirred into action. However, it can’t go unnoticed that we didn’t appear prepared to attempt to kill the game off, nor did we look capable of doing so.

We seemed to have no idea how to play against 10 men, and while some sides might have at least toyed with the idea of going for the jugular, our counter attacks too often withered on the vine because there was simply no support for the attackers.

We became sloppy, at times presenting the ball straight to Sunderland players (something both full backs were guilty of) at others just punting the ball deep into the opposition half.  We really should have created more than we did despite the home side’s fightback. Simply put, we utterly failed to adapt to deal with the Sunderland that emerged after half time.

The players should shoulder some of the blame for that, but it was painfully obvious that the manager was more than happy with a draw and wasn’t prepared, even with a numerical advantage, to risk forsaking one point to embrace the risks that come with chasing all three. And that was by no means an impossibility. While the likes of Adam Johnson started to cause problems, the mackems still looked brittle at the back and there was plenty of space to be exploited on the break had we been prepared to commit men forward.

We also waited an age to make any changes. Crouch should have been replaced before the hour mark as he’d proven totally ineffectual all evening. Either Jones should have come on or Walters moved into the hole with a winger coming on.

When we finally did throw on an attacking player after 83 minutes, we took off the only player we had who looked like creating anything in the cylindrical shape of Charlie Adam. Heaven forbid we have more than one creative presence across that first bank of four at any one time.

Such lack of ambition is the reason why so many fans have lost faith in TP.

 

4) Steven Nzonzi was Stoke’s top performer

Steven Nzonzi’s form is slowly but surely recovering after a moderately vicious mid-season dip, and that return continued at the Stadium of Light. The best midfielder on the pitch, the Frenchman was a study in composure, and continued to waste little even when his team mates were hot potatoing the ball back to Sunderland at a rate of knots in the second half. His short, neat passing, looking to get the ball wide where possible, was just the kind of tidiness you need from your defensive midfielders away from home, and he also showed again that accusations that he isn’t positive enough are bunk by making the most attacking third passes of any Stoke player and getting forward when permitted to test Mignolet from distance. Some sneer at a perceived lack of passing range but when you have so few players incapable of keeping the ball, especially under pressure, his value really should be appreciated.

The only problem is the sense that questions surrounding his attitude are never far away. His penchant for diving in with rash challenges that he’s never going to win is going to cost us sooner or later – that’s two weeks in a row he’s been booked for such folly. His visibly dismayed reaction to Adam’s substitution, though understandable, was also not especially advisable under a manager famed for liking things kept “in-house”.

A superior player of questionable temperament, Nzonzi is the embodiment of the paradox Pulis has struggled with in his attempts to push the team on over the past two seasons.

For all his faults, Nzonzi is surely Stoke’s outfield player of the season.

 

5)  A worrying lack of options

As frustrating as it was to see us wait so long to make any changes, deep down I wondered if they’d really make much difference anyway. The squad looks worryingly thin; replacing Adam with Etherington only served to weaken our already wilting attacking threat, with the former West Ham man having no impact on the game whatsoever. Similarly, Kenwyne Jones came on too late to make an impact, but in truth he has done nothing since he was unfathomably dropped when bang in form around the turn of the year.

The lack of depth was further underlined by Marc Wilson’s second half absence. Wilson was one of our better players before the break, looking comfortable on the ball, using it well and starting off attacks. He was a big part of our more patient than usual showing, which well and truly vanished after half time, not least due to the Irishman’s replacement with the increasingly calamitous Cameron. Wilson still has plenty of flaws – he’s positionally suspect, he switches off at times, he doesn’t offer much going forward – and he doesn’t even want to play at full back, as he’s stated on a number of occasions. Yet this season we have missed him badly in the full back slots when he hasn’t played, such is the lack of basic quality on the ball throughout the squad.

With our two central midfielders on yellows, there was a case for withdrawing Whitehead, never the most punctual of tacklers, early in the second half. Yet we had only the wheezing ghost of Wilson Palacios to call on as back up, and so wisely opted to take our chances with Deano. This illustrated that the much-maligned Glenn Whelan, another mediocre footballer, has been another big miss.

We brought in nine players this season’s two transfer windows, but have as big a rebuilding job on our hands this summer as we’ve needed since promotion. That’s a pretty damning assessment of our business. At the season’s kick-off we dreamt of ‘reaching the next level’. Now we find ourselves needing to find a way of scrambling back up to the level we were at. Whoever the manager is come August, you get the feeling that’s going to be easier said than done.

 

 

 

The Top 5 Conclusions from Stoke City 1-0 Norwich City 27.04.13

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1)  A sigh of relief

So there we go then. Job done. Mission accomplished. While we might not be officially out of the woods yet, in reality for Stoke to be relegated now would require a series of events as disastrous and convoluted as those in the Final Destination films.

Safety was secured with the team’s best performance for a while. Both sides needed a result, but only Stoke were really serious about getting one. Positive from the outset, we created enough chances to have won by a much wider margin, and this was as comfortable a 1-0 win as you’ll see.

Before the game the club ran an excellent and moving tribute to the late Paul Ware on the big screen, showing footage of some of the fine goals he scored as a great servant of Stoke City. It was a fitting send-off to a much-loved player, as was the second tribute in the 42nd minute that saw both sets of fans rise to applaud Ware.

TP sensibly picked largely the same team that got back to winning ways at QPR last week, the only change being Andy Wilkinson’s return at left back in place of the injured Marc Wilson. From the kick off, we set out to be positive. Our first chance came after just 38 seconds, when Ryan Shawcross headed a corner on top of the net, and we proceeded to win three free kicks in good positions within the first 10 minutes.

For all that, however – in what was, it has to be said, a dreadful first half – we failed to unduly trouble goalkeeper Mark Bunn. The visitors’ best spell of the game came in the first 20 minutes, as we looked uncertain at the back. In particular, Ryan Shawcross made a hesitant start to the game, catching Begovic off guard with a header that went out for a corner and caught in two minds himself when Bradley Johnson breezed past him to shoot over. The Canaries forced a couple more early chances, the best of which fell to Robert Snodgrass, who missed a point blank header after just five minutes.

What passed for their threat had long diminished by the half hour mark though and it was Stoke huffing and puffing for the most part. Cameron Jerome peeled off to the back post at a corner only to cannon his close range shot into Steven Nzonzi. A fine ball from Charlie Adam, again playing wide on the right, saw Crouch only get a glancing flick into Bunn’s arms when he probably should have made better contact.

The game took a turn for the niggly when Steven Nzonzi, who did improve after a frankly awful first 30 minutes, contrived to linger in possession, lose the ball, and then dive in and hack down Kei Kamara with a stupid late challenge. The visiting fans howled for blood but the resulting yellow card was probably the right decision. Comedy referee Anthony Taylor then set off on a mission to book every striker on the pitch in a nine minute frenzy.

We’d had the best of the first half and immediately made our mark at the start of the second. Big hoofs upfield had been our primary means of creation in the first half and that less than sophisticated tactic finally bore fruit within a minute of the restart. Crouch headed on Shawcross’ punt and the Norwich defence was too busy manhandling Jerome to notice Adam steaming through. The Scot smartly controlled before tucking the ball under Bunn to give us the lead – a tidy goal borne from awful defending.

From then on it was pretty much all Stoke. Adam’s influence grew as he began pinging some nice passes into the channels for Jerome to chase. We started to create more chances. A three-on-one break saw Jerome find Adam, who squared for Crouch, only for the former England striker to somehow miss his kick from about four yards out. Adam himself showed a willingness to shoot, while Nzonzi stirred himself to get into the box and fire a decent effort just wide.

The removal of Jerome for a half-fit Matthew Etherington sapped some of our momentum, and we briefly threatened to let Norwich back into it as they introduced the likes of Wes Hoolahan. Snodgrass’ runs got behind our defence a couple of times, while his replacement, Eliott Bennett, was afforded to much space and ended a decent run with a shot that went just wide of the right hand post.

There was still time for Stoke to create one final chance when Bunn made another fine stop from Nzonzi after good work from Etherington and Walters, and Norwich had a half decent chance of their own when Kamara headed over from a throw in. There were a couple more flashpoints, with tubby irritant Grant Holt usually at the centre of them, but after an interminable ‘four’ minutes of injury time, we held on with little fuss to claim the points.

And so the magic 40 points prized above all else by our manager have finally been accumulated – better late than never. There were positives to take from the game besides the win, not least in the chances we created and the return of our steel and spirit. Bigger questions remain unanswered, but we have emerged unscathed from the eye of this season’s storm, and that was far from guaranteed. Well done lads.

 

2) Encouraging signs in our second half display

There isn’t a more hideous footballing cliché out there than ‘it was a game of two halves’, but that doesn’t mean I’m not lazy enough to use it. While Stoke dominated the majority of the game, we did so far more effectively in the second half than the first. The opening 45 minutes saw us take the term ‘one-dimensional’ to new heights. With no width owing to the lack of proper wingers and Adam initially marginalised in that wide role, our one tactic was for either the goalkeeper or Shawcross to lump it forward at every opportunity. Despite the industry of both forwards, this approach yielded little in the way of opportunities, with, as per usual, nothing ‘dropping for us’.

Finally however the tactic bore fruit in the second half as Adam latched onto Crouch’s knockdown to open the scoring. Ironically, that particular ‘golden hoof’ proved the catalyst for us to play a bit more football. It forced Norwich to open up slightly, leaving more space for Cameron Jerome’s pace to exploit and affording Adam and Crouch more time on the ball. Adam was the hub of our creativity and his delivery is also improving. While I thought the sponsors’ man of the match award belonged elsewhere, he had another solid game. He’s by no means a long-term option out wide but he’s clearly rediscovered some confidence now he’s been given a run in the side and a bit of freedom to play.

Adam’s eye both for a pass and for goal, coupled with Jerome’s tendency to pop up all over the final third, gave us a cutting edge and a genuine threat on the counter attack. Both should offer the manager a few pointers for team-building priorities if he stays at the club. Creativity and pace are what we need to build our attacking threat around. I have no faith that he’ll see it way, but it’s surely our best chance of avoiding further regression.

 

3)  Have we found a strike partnership that works?

Peter Crouch and Cameron Jerome picked up where they left off at Loftus Road last week, with both causing problems for the Norwich back line. TP seems to have belatedly realised that Crouch can’t play as the lone striker and has started to use him in the hole behind Jerome. After a few false starts, it’s a change that finally looks to be working. Though the two did occasionally switch roles during the game, for the most part Jerome was again the player leading the line and the two dovetailed nicely. They reminded me of the partnership James Beattie and Ricardo Fuller began to develop towards the end of our first season in the Premier League. Despite one playing further back than the other, both are keen to get on the scoresheet, and Crouch’s natural instincts and love of scoring means he plays that bit closer to his strike partner and still gets into good positions when we’re on the front foot, as Beattie did operating behind Ric.

Crouch was man of the match for me. Having the target man in the hole arguably suits us better as it means there’s someone ahead of him to latch onto the knock-downs; how many times have we seen both him and Jones, when leading the line, flick the ball on to the invisible man with nobody else around them? Crouch won pretty much everything in the air but also received plenty of opportunity to show what he could do with his feet. His link up play was excellent and he helped drive us forward in that deeper role, showing an ability to go past players and play some great balls in for the wingers. He should have got himself a goal – that miss gets worse every time you see it – but his selfless, diligent, skilful performance was surely his best of this campaign. Though his form overall this season hasn’t been as good as last year’s, the problem with Crouch has for the most part always been with how we’ve used him, rather than with the player himself. Maybe, at long last, we’ve found the formula that suits him.

Longtime super-sub Jerome, meanwhile, has over the past fortnight pretty much put to bed the myth that he ‘can’t do it from the start’. Against Norwich he did everything asked of the player in that furthest forward striking role (other than score). He acted as the first line of defence, chasing down defenders and stopping Norwich attacks before they could even start; his movement caused all kinds of problems, the threat he carried on the break preventing the visitors from committing too many men forward in their search of an equaliser; and he got into dangerous positions, almost scoring himself when he found space at the back post in the first half to volley an effort that Nzonzi inadvertently blocked. His substitution with 15 minutes to go rendered our attacking play, which he had spearheaded, less effective.

He has his limitations – he appears to have made a conscious decision not to recognise the offside law, he still makes the wrong runs at times – and his second half pirouette dive was pretty embarrassing. But the chaos he caused underlined that he’s worth keeping around.

This blog has made the case for Kenwyne Jones to start many times (as well as Jerome, to be fair), but he has failed to take his chance in his last couple of starts. Crouch and Jerome have risen to the challenge, and should finish the season as our first choice pairing.

 

4) Norwich were dreadful

And that’s putting it kindly. Their noisy fans deserved better. Like a few Stokies, I thought that Chris Hughton, having done a fine job in tough circumstances at Newcastle and Birmingham, might be a good fit for us as a possible successor to TP. I’m not so sure now.

After making a fine return to life in the Premier League last season, the Canaries are finding life trickier this time round. Like us, all that has kept their head above water was an unbeaten run towards the end of 2012. In fact, there seem to be a number of similarities between their deficiencies and our own. They’re shocking on the road, with a worse away record than us. On Saturday they had few genuine chances, were devoid of pace and invention, and seemed to have better attacking players on the bench than on the pitch. They didn’t seem especially interested in getting a result. Both teams have, throughout the season, resembled Championship teams in Premier League clothing, with quality thin on the ground. That was true of the first half in general, which was quite simply an eyesore. Neither team had any ideas in that first period beyond lumping it up the pitch (Begovic to Crouch and Bunn to Kamara were the game’s two leading pass combinations). They’ve not had our resources but other teams have done more with less – the League Cup winners being the obvious example.That seems to have been noted by their fans, who appear increasingly divided regarding their manager’s future, with critics highlighting the poor football and negative approach his reign has brought.

Although it’s hard to deny that this game did see us return to our more, ahem, ‘robust’ stylings, another less than edifying facet of Norwich’s approach was just how many of their players seemed to stay down to try and get our players carded. Kamara’s comeback from the Nzonzi tackle like watching Platoon in reverse; Bunn, Holt and moustache-twirling panto villain Bradley Johnson also got involved in the gamesmanship.

Their fortunes next season will largely depend on how eye-catching new signing Ricky Van Wolfswinkel fares, but I am starting to wonder if Hughton’s all he’s cracked up to be.

 

5) The worst officiating of the season

Norwich played in their black away strip but the visiting fans sang ‘come on you yellows’ throughout. Presumably they were singing to the mustard-coloured officiating team, who certainly performed as if they too had made the trip from East Anglia. Referee Anthony Taylor turned in a calamitous display of Mr Bean proportions. You may remember Taylor from our match at Old Trafford in October – resembling and reffing like a failed attempt by Alex Ferguson to clone Howard Webb, and being too starstruck to send off Paul Scholes.

Here he perfected the art of making every situation worse. He more than anyone contributed to the niggly atmosphere with what seemed to be a freestyle approach to applying the laws of the game. Though he got the Nzonzi and Holt bookings right, he then went card happy and booked Jerome for the kind of collision with the goalkeeper that happens in so many games, and in which he was clearly going for the ball – the striker wouldn’t have been doing his job if he hadn’t gone for it. He also booked Crouch for what, again, was clearly an accidental foul when he trod on Tettey.

He and his equally clownish sidekicks on the sidelines managed to miss virtually everything, from the world’s clearest corner when Adam’s shot was deflected wide, to Jerome’s daft dive that should have been punished with a card, to Bradley Johnson playing basketball. Holt’s booking seemed to act as a shield rather than a deterrent, as from that point on he was allowed to rough up anyone he chose with impunity, safe in the knowledge Taylor hadn’t the bottle to dish out a second yellow.

As the game went on he seemed to make it his mission to get Norwich an equaliser, electing to ignore fouls on Stoke players entirely and playing a couple of minutes’ extra injury time. His whole performance brought new meaning to the word ‘shambolic’.

No wonder referees need help from technology. This one would struggle to wipe his backside unaided.

The Top 5 Conclusions from Stoke City 0-2 Manchester Utd 14.04.13

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1)  Stoke are no longer a team for the big occasion

 It’s a weird feeling, turning up at the Brit expecting to lose. It’s something I’ve not done for a long time. I’ve expected a tough game, suspected we’d struggle to get a result, but I honestly can’t remember the last time before last weekend that I’d been so certain we’d be beaten on our own patch, even against top class opposition.

Yet there was no anticipation whatsoever that we’d get so much as a point out of the champions-elect on Sunday, and the maximum most of us hoped for was that we’d avoid a thrashing, put in a performance and get some much-needed confidence back.

It was an objective only partly achieved. Stoke for the most part still looked worrying half-hearted and clueless, and that the score was kept down owed more to Man Utd spending the game cruising in second gear than anything we did.

Matthew Etherington was not passed fit, so Jon Walters moved wide left and Charlie Adam came in to play in the hole, with recalls for Glenn Whelan and Andy Wilkinson. Like last week against Aston Villa, Stoke started brightly, and like last week, they then allowed the visitors to take the lead through a soft goal with their very first attack. There was a kind of inevitability about this one though. It’s the kind of goal teams in the mire concede when confidence has flatlined. A United corner somehow bypassed three Stoke players, with Jones and Shawcross getting in each other’s way and a static Whelan leaving space on the post. This comedy of errors allowed Michael Carrick to poke the ball past Asmir Begovic almost in slow motion to claim just the 20th goal of his seven-year Red Devils career. Just three minutes had elapsed.

Referee Jon Moss could have effectively blown up there; the game was over, and both teams knew it. The visitors would keep the ball with embarrassing ease for the first half hour. Wayne Rooney, deployed in central midfield, enjoyed a dynamic, driving game and tested Begovic with a thumping effort from 25 yards. Javier Hernandez proved an unlikely bully, booting Wilkinson in the head as if he was auditioning for a role in A Clockwork Orange, and needlessly fouling Begovic and Shawcross.

Stoke flickered into life briefly towards the end of the half, working a couple of decent balls into the area and winning a couple of inviting set pieces. Robert Huth had our best chance of the opening period when he headed wide from Whelan’s delivery. He probably should have hit the target.

We started the second half fairly strongly as well, with Adam coming to the fore, registering out first shots on target of the game: the first was a fierce effort that tested De Gea, the second was an ambitious, wind-assisted chipped effort from his own half that was altogether easier for the young Spaniard.

The killer goal, when it did arrive, came slightly against the run of play. Rooney got into the box and was caught as he turned by Wilkinson. Robin Van Persie was always going to end his goal drought against us, and he duly despatched the resulting penalty before indulging in some curiously OTT celebrations that included nearly wiping out his septugenarian manager on the sidelines.

Almost immediately afterwards, Stoke’s best chance of the game fell to Ryan Shotton when he broke through on the right, but the youngster scuffed his shot straight at the goalkeeper. That was pretty much the last noteworthy moment, and both teams went through the motions for the remainder, with Stoke reduced to shots from distance. Tony Pulis tried to shake things up a bit, throwing on Michael Owen and Cameron Jerome and going 4-3-3, but the changes had little effect, and the game fizzled out. There was no sign of the intensity we usually bring to these home games against the big teams, and instead we just got the same tired, lifeless footballing gruel.

Towards the end, the away fans began to enjoy themselves, telling us we were going down. Right now, it’s difficult to disagree.

 

2) We’re not doing Charlie Adam any favours

Charlie Adam’s sponsors’ man of the match award was just about merited in a game that periodically illustrated what he brings to the side as well as the problems with him as a player and with how we’re using him.

His inclusion was more evidence of the growing disconnect between Tony Pulis’ recognition of what the team needs and his dogged determination to stick with an increasingly dysfunctional system.

Adam’s entrance off the bench a week previously vs Aston Villa provided us with an attacking impetus for the first time in the game. He’d operated in a deeper midfield role, which enabled him to have plenty of the ball and drive us forward. Pulis, having witnessed this and noted his impact, decided that he’d play him from the start against the champions-elect in the role behind the striker, in which he’s struggled all season.

Consequently, Adam had a fairly quiet first half. He was eager to impress, and this saw him drop progressively deeper to forage for the ball, meaning that Kenwyne Jones was also forced to fall back to take over some of Adam’s defensive duties and stop himself getting isolated. As a result, we very often had nobody in any dangerous areas when we had the ball.

After the break however we saw more of Adam’s good points. Though he continued to abandon his post in search of the ball, he did manage to actually find it more often, and his influence started to grow. His willingness to try the unexpected and to shoot on sight are welcome qualities in a team that can’t score goals, and it was he who managed our first shot on target with a stinging effort that De Gea managed to hold onto around the 60 minute mark.

As the game went on, Adam popped up all over the pitch as he tried to make things happen, showing desire and determination that has been conspicuously lacking in some of the manager’s undroppables in recent weeks.

Like a lot of flair players, he has a tendency to frustrate at times – his aversion to the easy ball is a particularly irksome trait (one shared by Ricardo Fuller) – but creative players are risk taker by nature, and not everything they try is going to come off. You have to take the rough with the smooth.

All in all it was a decent showing from Adam, and while I’m not convinced he’s the saviour some are building him up to be, in a team so woefully short of goals, he surely has a role to play in our remaining fixtures.

 

3) Why no wingers, Tony?

The manager’s decision to use a grand total of zero wingers for this game was a bit of a surprise given his “Ronaldo and Bale would suit my style brilliantly” rant earlier in the week. TP had claimed he was all about width and that he loved to “have people down the sides with pace”. Ignoring the fact that Tony’s great love of wingers has seen him start two in the same league game just five times this season, you might think the week after a wide player scored the team’s first goal in open play since 9th February that we might find room for at least one.

Michael Kightly has, in many ways, had a pretty dreadful season, too often looking below the required standard. However, for all his flaws and poor form, he’s direct, gets into good positions and above all carries a goal threat. His goal against Villa was his third of the campaign, which makes him our joint third top league scorer despite starting just 14 games. With Etherington out, it was frankly bizarre that he didn’t start on Sunday, especially considering that we look to work the ball wide irrespective of who we’ve got playing on the flanks.

The two players there against Man Utd, Walters and Shotton, were both irredeemably poor. Shotton’s lack of quality unfortunately shone through again despite his work rate and admirable refusal to hide, as he shanked virtually every pass/cross/shot he attempted far beyond its intended target. Walters meanwhile had the most anonymous game I can remember him having. There’s a case for dropping both.

Presumably Pulis opted for those two players as part of a game plan to keep the score down, mindful of our goal difference during the run-in. However, it’s a risky strategy to effectively write off a home game altogether when there were only six games left prior to Sunday and three of those come away, where we’re nothing short of hideous.

There are four out and out wingers currently on the books at Stoke City and two of them simply have to play for the rest of the season. If Etherington is injured then it’ll have to be Kightly +1 – even if that means TP rolling the dice on Brek Shea or swallowing his pride and bringing Jermaine Pennant back in. Match winners are needed and pig-headedness cannot be afforded at this stage.

If wingers are as important to the Pulis blueprint as he himself has suggested (and they are) his ongoing unwillingness to utilise them almost starts to look like self-sabotage.

 

4) Individual positives and negatives

Scratching around for pluses, this was a marginal step up from the Villa nadir, a game in which, to paraphrase Franz Beckenbauer, you could have put all our outfield players in a sack and beaten it, and whoever you hit would’ve deserved it.

Alongside Adam’s decent display, the much-maligned Glenn ‘pritt stick’ Whelan had a steady enough game on his return to action. Andy Wilkinson’s penalty concession was a shame, as he’d put in a purposeful showing at right back showing many attributes that we’ve been lacking:  namely a desire to get forward, a tough streak and a complete lack of respect for the opposition. He’s another one who should play every game between now and 19th May.

When Kenwyne Jones could rouse himself to do some chasing he looked a handful and won some throws in good positions, but overall his performance didn’t exactly make you want to break out the bunting. Aside from the two dreadful wingers, further candidates for the chop include Steven Nzonzi, who at the moment is a petulant misery offering us little, and Geoff Cameron, who gets worse every week.

The American doesn’t seem to know what he’s supposed to be doing. Positionally lost and panicky, his first action was to pass the ball straight to Kagawa under no pressure whatsoever, and things didn’t get any better from there. The crowning turd in the waterpipe was the moment when he contrived to take a throw in straight into touch. On being hooked, midway through the second half, the expression etched on his face matched those of thousands of Stoke fans in the ground – pure relief.

The big concern is that the evidence that TP’s approach has stopped working is mounting. For a second consecutive week Ryan Shawcross was caught in the crossfire between manager and fans, the former exhorting him to lump the ball forward as usual, the latter berating him when he did so. We have no attacking ideas whatsoever, going through the motions from hoof to hoof.

In short, we look not just like a team in a relegation battle, but one nailed on to lose it.

 

5) Can we learn anything about our prospects from a game against Man Utd?

It was always going to be a tall order against the leaders and you could therefore claim it’s hard to take too much away in terms of positives or negatives.

A worry though is that we were never in the game. It was the easiest game Sir Alex Ferguson’s men have had at the Britannia. There was no belief, we just meekly accepted our fate.  The Red Devils are not invincible. We took points off them at home last season, while Wigan shocked them a few months later as they kick-started their own survival bid.

We’re not prepared to try anything different, and that is going to be what relegates us in the end. Even the 4-3-3 we switched to was marred by the same hit and hope rubbish.

We have to keep the faith with the few things that are working or even the stuff that just might. Adam has to be involved more in a role that plays to his strengths – perhaps we could revisit that 4-3-3 with better suited personnel? Geoff Cameron and Ryan Shotton need to be dropped and possibly Jon Walters and Steven Nzonzi as well.

We need to stir ourselves from self-pity, as we’re going down without a whimper. When a Tony Pulis’ team loses its fight, there’s nothing else left.

The Top 5 Conclusions from Stoke City 1-3 Aston Villa 06.04.13

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1.  A low point

It’s been a long time since I came away from the Brit feeling practically traumatised. Maybe I have got too used to “steak and chips”. What we were served instead on Saturday was a real dog’s breakfast. No question, this game represented the very nadir of Stoke’s time in the Premier League so far.

In the first genuine six pointer we’ve faced since it became clear that we are part of the relegation shake-up, Stoke were not just beaten but comprehensively so. It’s no exaggeration to suggest we could’ve lost by five or six.

At ten to three such a gut punch never seemed on the cards. The sun was shining, and for once the crowd was lifted by the team news, as players out of form (Whelan, Crouch) were not playing for one reason or another, Jones and Walters were reunited in attack, and Matthew Etherington was back. Sure enough we made a bright start, winning two corners in the first five minutes. Jones got into a good position in the box but, off balance, fired a poor effort high and wide. A solid looking shout for handball was turned away by Mark Clattenburg when Walters’ shot struck Nathan Baker’s arm.

Then Villa scored with their first attack and everything went to pieces. Awful defending from at least three Stoke players saw us allow the visitors too much space down our left, where Jordan Bowery worked the ball into Gabriel Agbonlahor while our back line stood watching. It took two attempts, but the ex-England man still had time to force the ball home from close range.

Sometimes going a goal behind can fire you up – this time however, it had the opposite effect. Instead it was Villa who went for the jugular while we held on for dear life. Bowery slammed a shot into the side netting, before Asmir Begovic made a terrific save to force Andreas Weimann’s effort onto the post. Agbonlahor then further endeared himself to the home support with a frankly embarrassing dive in the area after he again all too easily wriggled clear of Geoff Cameron. He was booked.

Meanwhile, all of Stoke’s worst traits were on show. There were aimless hoofs to nobody, panicky, misplaced passes to opponents and advertising boards, and numerous crosses (usually from Ryan Shotton) directly into Brad Guzan’s arms. Villa had us very well scouted, closed us down, always made sure what passed for our ‘danger’ men were well shackled and as a consequence we barely got a sniff of goal in the first half. The players were booed off at half time, lucky to still be in the game.

Anyone expecting us to come out firing in the second half was given a rude awakening as almost immediately we were nearly caught out again, the impressive Bowery getting in behind Cameron again only for the outstanding Begovic to save us once more. Neither of the substitutes we threw on, Michael Kightly and Cameron Jerome, were especially effective in helping us to wrest the game back, and indeed Paul Lambert’s men remained fairly comfortable until the 75th minute, when Charlie Adam replaced Shotton.

The chunky Scot (briefly) changed the game. Fired up, and operating in a deeper role, he spread the play nicely and positively, always looking to get forward. Four minutes after his entrance, he crafted an unlikely equaliser, playing the ball wide left to Walters, receiving it back in the box and, at full stretch, angling a ball in to Kightly who swept home.

The stage was set for an unlikely tilt at victory in a game we’d been constantly second best in. However, The Villans, who’d come from behind in their last two victories, did so again with rather less effort than they might have imagined. Charles N’Zogbia’s corner was booted half-heartedly away by Adam as far as young full back Matt Lowton – who controlled the ball and, 35 yards out, struck a perfect volley that went over Begovic’s outstretched arm before dipping into the net. It was a wondergoal.

We pressed forward again in injury time in search of another equaliser, but instead Dean Whitehead, who’d had a tidy enough game up to that point, inexplicably managed to pass it straight to Benteke from about two yards away, who broke away with nobody near him to put the game beyond doubt in a moment of farce typical of our performance.

Discontent in the stands has been growing for a while but this game saw the first significant signs of the crowd turning on the manager – while a large number drifted away after the third goal, many of those who remained joined in with the away fans as they taunted our manager with a chorus of “sacked in the morning”.

Aston Villa were our opponents in a defining match at the start of our top tier return – if we’re relegated, they may turn out to have taken part in a defining match at the end of it.

 

2. The ‘right’ changes made no difference

Many disagree, but I actually thought the manager picked largely the right team against Villa, whether by design or otherwise. At the very least, I could see the logic in most of his selections. Jones and Walters blew Liverpool away on Boxing Day and generally look like our most effective strike partnership. Etherington has been missed when absent. Villa have been poor in defending set pieces, so the inclusion of Shotton on the right, who will look to get forward and has a long throw, also made sense (to me at least). Looking at the team before kick off, there was no doubt in my mind that this was going to be the day that we turned things round.

How dizzyingly wrong I was. Not one of those changes proved effective on the day. Etherington wasn’t fit and was replaced at half time. Shotton had an absolute nightmare, incapable of even the simplest of passes. Jones was anonymous and there was no trace of an understanding with Walters, as evidenced by their second half spat when both went for the same ball.

You’d be hard pressed to find an outfield player who did contribute anything positive. There was an element of grim black comedy about the fact that two of our better performers were the ones who supplied Villa with the bullets for their two late decisive goals. Game changer Charlie Adam’s clearance went straight to Lowton; no sooner had Dean Whitehead been announced sponsors’ man of the match than he played that suicide ball straight to Benteke to kill us off. It’s ironic really, given that the ‘efforts’ of the other players meant that we should have been dead and buried long before then. Week by week, Geoff Cameron is showing that he isn’t a Premier League standard footballer whichever position you play him in. Marc Wilson again looked vulnerable to pace. Steven Nzonzi had one of his sulky, ineffective, five-yard-pass-to-heavily-marked-man games. Robert Huth was all at sea throughout.

There were some shocking individual performances and on that level at least, it’s possible to have a shred of sympathy for TP’s cracked-voice, post-match refrain of “it’s not just me”.

What’s really worrying though is that it’s clear that our problems run deeper than just the personnel – there is a much wider malaise. I thought it was just a matter of getting the right players in the right positions and things would turn round. That was not the case against Villa.

A number of things that have worked for us regularly in the past are not working for us at the moment. The Jones/Walters strike partnership was toothless, super-sub Cameron Jerome had little impact, even our set piece delivery isn’t what it was.

After the defeat at Everton it was possible to console ourselves with the idea that our fighting spirit remained alive and well as we created chances and kept battling even after falling behind. On Saturday though, we totally collapsed after conceding that first goal – I’ve never seen confidence crumble so quickly in a Stoke side at home under Pulis. Even the silver lining that we still somehow grabbed an equaliser turns to rust when you consider how quickly we came apart at the seams again afterwards.

In the past, all it’s taken is a couple of tweaks to bounce back from a bad run or a particularly bad result. Now though, there’s no sign of that (apologies in advance) bouncebackability. No sign of being able to pull ourselves out of this tailspin. Nobody seems to know what to do. A team that’s always prided itself on resilience and togetherness now seems in disarray.

Those kind of teams get relegated.

 

3. The system has had its day

As the afternoon dragged on, and Villa’s smaller, faster, more skillful players buzzed around and past our lumbering, slumbering players almost at will, they, for all their own struggles and relegation concerns, looked like the future, and we looked prehistoric. That was the most depressing aspect of the afternoon.

We threw three attacking players on in desperate search of an equaliser in the second half, yet our rigid system did not change. I expected we might go to a back three when both of our full backs were replaced – something we have done on occasion – but instead we clung to 4-4-1-1, even when Adam came on, with numerous players moving to different slots in a game of positional musical chairs.

None of this made a huge amount of difference. For the duration of the game, we were, as we have been for virtually all of the second half of this season (and the second half of last season for that matter) one-paced, predictable, and uninspiring. We had literally no ideas beyond looping crosses in the box towards one or two heavily marked men, and long hoofs in the direction of one or two heavily marked men.

Ron Vlaar had the easiest afternoon of his career, just standing there and heading these long balls away for fun. Our corners and free kicks were comfortably dealt with as well, Paul Lambert’s team having evidently worked hard at defending set pieces, likely knowing we had nothing else in our arsenal. Even with Jones instead of Crouch, Kightly instead of Etherington and Jerome leading the line, we failed to threaten.

All this leads me to ask – is  it worth persevering with this inflexible 4-4-1-1? It hasn’t been effective for a while now, and that seems to be increasingly true regardless of who we play in it. It’s rigid, and demanding, and makes attempts to find and utilise ‘better’ players all the more restrictive.

Historically, Pulis’ system has worked best with those players from our Championship days who might have been limited but who were prepared to buy wholesale into the ethos and die for the shirt, as well as the dogs’ home types aware this could be their last shot at glory.  However, attacking players of quality have frequently struggled with it.

Look at how hard it’s been to replace the wingers – the system demands them to be almost superhuman, possessing both an attacking threat and haring back to double up as a second full back.

Look at how many players have failed in the hole – Mama Sidibe remains one of most successful exponents, while the likes of Kitson (£5.5m), Tuncay (£5m), Owen, Ameobi, Jones (£8m), and Adam (£4m) are either not trusted or haven’t succeeded in marrying the defensive requirements of the role to the further need to link play and get among the goals – it’s essentially the work of two players.

In the midfield ‘cage,’ Steven Nzonzi is the first player signed since promotion to successfully dislodge one half of our Championship pairing for a sustained period of time. That’s despite 12 central midfielders at an estimated cost of around £35m coming to the club since then.

The attacking roles in our side, with the exception of the player leading the line, come with a boatload of specific, knackering defensive duties, and expensive attacking players trained since their academy days to express themselves struggle to adapt to this world where ‘shape’ is prized above all. Players have to be re-educated to ‘learn our ways’, and when they can’t, they’re either shunted out of position or shipped off. There has to be an easier way, surely?

The one player to change the game on Saturday was Charlie Adam –a man who’s spent much of season struggling to make an impact largely due to the fact that his best  position doesn’t exist in our system.

We have changed the set up on occasion in the past, with mixed results, but we’re now at the stage where a permanent divorce from 4-4-1-1 is needed. It’s all very well saying we just need the right personnel but the inflexibilities of the system make it all the harder to find them.

That’s why, when key components do reach their expiry date, they’re all the harder to replace. We can’t find a striker who can do what Fuller could, and can’t find a midfielder with the discipline to sit back and keep shape while possessing vision and a passing range.

The game is changing and we need to become more adaptable and add more strings to our bow. It’s time therefore to rip up the Pulis playbook.  And if that means changing the manager then so be it.

 

4.  Asmir Begovic is Stoke’s undisputed crown jewel

If there were any doubts remaining whatsoever about the identity of Stoke’s player of the season, they were blown away on Saturday. Asmir Begovic is the only man to deliver consistently during this campaign, and were it not for him we would have lost by an altogether more embarrassing and damaging scoreline.

Given scant help by his back four, Begovic worked miracles to keep the score down, most notably with first half stops from Weimann and Bowery.

Questions might be raised about his positioning for Lowton’s wonder strike, but sometimes a great goal is just a great goal – nobody was expecting the young full back to do that, and speculative shots from distance can’t always be legislated for.

Begovic’s importance provides us with a real dilemma in the summer. Do we cash in and provide ourselves with a nice pot of money to embark on the rebuilding job clearly needed? Or do we strive to hold onto a player who is largely responsible for us not already being anchored in the relegation zone?

As promising a talent as Jack Butland is, he’s still an infant in ‘goalkeeper years’, and it would be quite the gamble to bank on ‘potential’ between the sticks while flogging a man who is already one of the best keepers in the country. The noises coming from the club when Butland’s signing was confirmed were that we hoped to keep Begovic for another season and look into sending Butland back out on loan. If possible, this is looking an increasingly sensible option.

Of course, if a really big club does come in for Begovic, you wonder just how much of a say we’ll have in his future. And if we’re relegated, there’s every liklihood that neither he nor Butland will want to stick around…

One comforting notion is that Begovic himself might not have as many options as first thought come the summer, with David De Gea finally settling into life at Old Trafford, Chelsea having their own world-class custodian to compete with Petr Cech in Thibaut Courtois, and Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City all having their own firmly-established number one (I think, if we stay up, we can safely laugh off Fulham’s reported interest).

Regardless, if we do manage to survive this season, we’ll owe a debt of gratitude to Asmir Begovic, irrespective of whose shirt he’s wearing come September 1st 2013.

 

5. So what now?

Long-term, it’s clear that new thinking is needed.

However, is a short-term change totally out of the question? The idea that we’d replace the manager now been dismissed by pundits and more significantly the chairman, but things can change very quickly in football.

People are often quick to paint Coates as an arch-pragmatist, who’ll stick with Pulis as long as he delivers Premier League football. However, if it starts to seriously look like we’ll go down, might that same pragmatism not see him move swiftly for the good of the club, to try and protect our access to that huge pot of TV gold at end of this season’s rainbow?

I can see the case for and against an immediate change.

The team continues to underperform. With so many of his dressing room ‘generals’ gone (Higginbotham, Delap, Diao, Fuller etc.), it seems as if TP is struggling to instill his methods into the current crop. Perhaps now is our chance to roll the dice on a new man to fire-fight, someone with some new ideas who can give us that lift to get over the line.

On the other hand, maybe now isn’t the time to be rocking the boat. More upheaval when we’re in such a precarious position could cause us to capsize altogether. Perhaps Saturday was the shock to the system we needed. The Villa result and performance well and truly destroyed the notion, continually peddled by Pulis, that we’ve been somehow ‘unlucky’. The only luck involved on Saturday was in only conceding three. Maybe, having stared into the abyss, we’ll now be jolted into action to scrape the points we need.

Win, lose or draw, a battling performance is needed at home to the champions-elect on Sunday, to restore some confidence if nothing else. Martin O’Neill didn’t survive a narrow home defeat to Manchester United. Will Tony Pulis survive a heavy one?

The Top 5 Conclusions from Everton 1-0 Stoke City 30.03.13

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1)  Stoke are in the thick of a relegation battle

In some ways it seems harsh to bemoan or even proclaim a narrow away defeat to Everton as being the game that officially plunges Stoke into their first genuine dogfight since their first season up in 2008/09. Goodison Park is a genuine fortress, Everton losing there just once in the league this season, and despite the Toffees being somewhat deflated and without a couple of key men in Fellaini and Pienaar, getting a result there was always going to be a big ask.

Initially, it actually looked as if we might make a decent stab at doing just that. By recent standards, the team TP picked was reasonably logical – Ryan Shotton’s deployment on the right of midfield was clearly designed to provide added protection against Leighton Baines, but he’s shown he can offer an attacking threat as well, while Cameron Jerome was back up front after being senselessly moved to the wing against West Brom. We were also boosted by the return from suspension of Robert Huth, who always seems to do well in this fixture.

Stoke made a positive start, and just two minutes had elapsed when a Shotton long throw saw Huth force a great save from Tim Howard, only for Jon Walters to hit the bar when faced with an open goal. To be fair to Walters, the chance perhaps came to him that bit too quickly, but you suspect a more instinctive finisher would have buried it.

Our delivery from wide positions was much improved, with Shotton swinging over a fine cross that Jerome almost got his head to and Wilson also putting in a couple of good balls into the danger zone. Everton, for their part, looked sluggish and short on confidence and ideas, and mustered little beyond a Jelavic header that went straight into Asmir Begovic’s grateful arms.

Stoke could therefore consider themselves slightly unfortunate to fall behind. Howard’s punch from another Wilson cross found Kevin Mirallas, who evaded Steven Nzonzi’s attempt to win back possession before storming past the statuesque Geoff Cameron, into the box, and shooting underneath Begovic and into the net. It was a quality individual goal.

That knocked the stuffing out of us and Mirallas almost scored again immediately afterwards, his low, angled drive going inches wide. We started to make an increasing number of silly, needless fouls, Huth being (inevitably) the main culprit and Whelan going into the book for a blatant tug-back on Victor Anichebe.

As disjointed as we became however, we continued to have chances. Walters hit a terrific effort from 25 yards that again called Howard into action, and Ryan Shawcross had the ball in the net but was (rightly) ruled offside. After the break we had another couple of good chances, as Huth headed Whelan’s free kick just wide and Shotton put a free header wide that he should have at least hit the target with.

Thereafter, however, our attacking threat withered and died, as David Moyes’ well-organised side closed out the game and prevented us from making any headway – letting us have the ball in non-dangerous areas and waiting for us to waste possession with a misplaced pass or aimless hoof, which was invariably what happened. We had few ideas and little support for our front men, which made it rather easy for a subdued Everton side to contain us while posing us few problems themselves. With 10 minutes left TP threw on Kenwyne Jones and Charlie Adam, and it was the Scotsman who had our last chance with a free kick right on the edge of the area. Howard again made the save. It would be the last kick of the game, and another contest that had started promisingly ultimately fizzled out into the usual dreary visual gruel.

There can be no pointing to our league position or burying our head in the sand now. After one win in four months, with the teams at the bottom showing signs of life, Stoke are in trouble.

 

2)  More chances, but the same old problems

One of the positives to come out of the game was that we actually managed to create several genuine scoring opportunities. In particular, the fact that our delivery into the box seemed to have improved (despite not having a recognised winger on the field) was encouraging, because it’ll be that, as much as anything, that sees us secure our safety this season.

Given that one of the main criticisms of our away performances has been a lack of attacking intent, it was refreshing to see us show a bit of positivity in this game. What was less encouraging was how bad our actual attempts to attack were. There was again too little movement in the final third, too little support for our strikers, no forward options when our full backs or midfielders got on the ball. Too often, we seemingly had no idea what to do beyond lumping it up to one of the strikers, who would invariably lose it.

It didn’t help that neither of our front two was playing especially well. I was in favour of giving the Crouch/Jerome partnership a try, but it isn’t working. I still think with the right partner Jerome could be an asset, but here his worst traits were on show and actively hindering us, notably his poor touch and hesitance when given too much time to think about his next move. Crouch meanwhile, was far too easily monstered in the air by Everton’s centre backs, winning just a third of the aerial duals he was involved in.

On the ball we painfully lacked quality in all departments, and are more reliant on ‘hoping things drop for us’ than ever. Five years in, and £100m spent, shouldn’t our gameplan be a bit more sophisticated than this?

 

3) Why did we wait so long to change things?

That was the biggest puzzler for me coming out of the game – why did the manager wait until the 79th minute to make a substitution when it was clear that the game was slipping away from us? I honestly don’t have an answer for it. At least one of the attacking players we had on the bench should have come on at least 15 minutes earlier.

Almost as curious was why we didn’t use Jerome and Jones together up front (who have proved an effective pairing late on in games). Instead, Charlie Adam went into that role behind the striker, where he’s yet to prove particularly effective, and Jerome moved wide, where he’s traditionally worse than useless. Even if you’re of the view that Adam wouldn’t work in a conventional midfield two (as I am) he did a decent enough job there in identical circumstances when he came on against West Ham and there was nothing to lose at that stage of the game.

In the event, Adam still managed to exert a bit of influence, spraying a couple of decent passes around, and the two subs did combine at the death when Jones smartly directed a header into Adam’s path and the husky Scot won a free kick on the edge of the box that he took himself and at least managed to get on target.

The long wait for a change was another situation whereby we seemed paralysed by excessive caution – like the one at Craven Cottage in February when Pulis forbade Begovic from going up for a last minute corner. There was nothing to lose in either situation – so what were we trying to achieve? It’s a question more and more Stokies find themselves asking every game.

 

4) Silver Linings

Looking for more positives then, is it possible to look at this performance and see the seeds of our survival?

The fact that we seem to be defending as a unit again after a very dodgy couple of months at the start of the year can only be a good thing. It seems a long time ago that our back line was being hailed as among the best in Europe, but with the Huth/Shawcross partnership restored in central defence we looked very solid, and both centre backs turned in strong showings. Geoff Cameron was beaten disappointingly easily for the goal, but between them he and Shotton kept Leighton Baines (one of Everton’s most creative players this season, despite being a left back) in check. It might be argued that David Moyes made their job easier by deploying a wing back system that gave Baines no attacking support on that flank, but neverthess we ensured his impact was limited. On the other flank, Marc Wilson managed to get forward more than usual to support Jon Walters, who in turn seemed more capable defensively than normal.

Overall I thought Walters had a very decent game, despite that early miss. His stellar work rate is something we perhaps take for granted but he was neat and tidy, generally positive and got into the positions to create chances. I’m not saying I want to see him playing out wide, but he has in spades the character we’ll need to secure our status in this league.

Indeed, it seems that the battling qualities that have been so important in establishing ourselves in the Premier League are still largely intact. Nothing is more corrosive in a relegation battle than a lack of fight, and the fact that we’ve still managed to create a chance right at the death in each of our last two games underlines that lads are still buying into the manager’s ethos of “‘aaard work”. That’s far and away the biggest positive we can take from recent performances.

 

5)  Peter Coates will watch events at Sunderland and Reading with interest

Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored that results are simply not improving and we have a lot of problems, ‘fighting spirit’ or not.

We are still persisting with numerous square pegs in round holes and continuing to select players who are badly out of form, like Crouch and Whelan. The team thrives on wing play yet we continue to use only one winger – or sometimes, as on Saturday, none at all. We set up to play on the break but Jerome is the only player in the side with genuine pace (you could just about make a case for Shotton being quick as well, I guess), and he’s expected to turn the sow’s ears of our aimless hoofing into silk purses. Yet it’s clearer now than ever that Ricardo Fuller, he ain’t.

It’s this dogged persistence with failure that’s seeing us sleepwalk towards the trapdoor. The manager is increasingly descending into self-parody as he constantly bemoans our luck, ignoring all the obvious deficiencies in our approach  as our bad run stretches on to one win in 11 league games in 2013.

The more Pulis keeps on crying misfortune and burying his head in the sand, the more it appears that he’s talking his neck into a noose. Though Peter Coates will likely stick with his manager for the remainder of the season, unlike the owners of the similarly plummeting Sunderland and Reading, if there are no signs that our problems are being addressed over the summer I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bet 365 supremo decided a change was necessary. He might even choose to replace Pulis at the end of the season if there’s no improvement in our results between now and then.

The personal friendship that exists between Coates and Pulis is well-known, but it’s safe to say Coates hasn’t got where he is today by being sentimental or by being incapable of making ruthless decisions.

The manager isn’t making the changes we need at the moment, so what evidence is there that he’ll make them in the summer?

Momentum is everything at this stage of the season, and ours is all heading in the wrong direction. If Tony Pulis continues to fiddle while Rome burns and do nothing to arrest our slide, then in the end he will (sadly, given the terrific job he’s done for Stoke City) pay for it with his job – sooner or later.

The Top 5 Conclusions from Stoke City 0-0 WBA 16.03.13

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1)   Not a disaster, but not the boost we needed either

There are two ways of looking at this – on the one hand we stopped the rot after three straight defeats, and against an in-form side to boot. On the other, Stoke’s sixth goalless draw of the season could also be viewed as a missed opportunity to get back to winning ways, having picked up maximum points just once this year.

The game itself was an exercise in pathetic fallacy, as events on the pitch were reflected by the weather – drab and wet. The visitors weren’t too fussed about getting anything more than a draw, with Romelu Lukaku cutting an isolated and at times less than enthused figure, despite having his team’s best chances of the afternoon. Stoke meanwhile, had little trouble getting into the final third but couldn’t break down the resolute Baggies’ back line, despite the enthusiastic efforts of Matthew Etherington and Steven Nzonzi.

‘Defences on top’ is often a euphemism for a pig ugly football match, and while it’s certainly an apt description, it’s also a compliment, as there was some strong defending from both sides. Despite a couple of fatal hiccups in recent weeks, Marc Wilson has impressed overall at centre back and his showing against the Baggies was perhaps his best in the role so far, alongside the equally impressive Ryan Shawcross, while there were some positive runs made by both full backs. Asmir Begovic had relatively little to do. For West Brom, Liam Ridgewell at left back looked adept both defensively and going forward, while Jonas Olsson had Peter Crouch in his pocket for most of the afternoon.

Tony Pulis had done a bit of reshuffling to accommodate the fit again Etherington, with Andy Wilkinson dropping to the bench, Ryan Shotton moving to right back and Geoff Cameron across to left back. Cameron Jerome meanwhile, bafflingly found himself shunted to the wing with the ineffective Crouch/Walters strike partnership restored.

There were early chances for both teams, Jerome heading over after good work by Crouch and Etherington, while Chris Brunt might feel he should have done better when he found himself goal-side of Ryan Shotton only to shoot straight at Begovic. After that though, the match died a death, with neither side threatening consistently. Stoke won a few corners but did nothing with them, before Walters advanced on goal and hit a strong effort from just outside the box that was deflected inches wide of Ben Foster’s far post; West Brom had some joy down the Stoke right but again fashioned nothing concrete in a sterile first half.

Things weren’t helped by the performance of referee Mike Dean, who seemed to be labouring under the misapprehension that everyone had paid to see him – something the home crowd let him know about with a chorus of “it’s all about Mike Dean”. Whistle-happy and demonstrative, he broke up play for a number of non-incidents, dished out a joke of a yellow card to Ryan Shotton and turned a West Brom free kick into a pantomime.

After the break things were slightly more lively, as Lukaku was inches away from finishing a move he himself had started, just failing to get his head to a ball whipped in from the WBA left. Immediately afterwards, an Etherington cross found Crouch who looped a header onto the roof of the net. Stoke started to pose more danger down the left, with Etherington and Cameron combining well, and our threat (marginally) increased with the introduction of Kenwyne Jones and Charlie Adam. West Brom had created the game’s better chances up to that point, most notably when they caught us napping with a short free kick that resulted in a cross from the right being deflected into Lukaku, with the goal at his mercy, and just going over, when it could have gone anywhere. That was a let off.

Stoke again huffed and puffed for one last push and enjoyed their most dangerous spell of the game. Wilson headed just wide from Whitehead’s corner. Mike Dean awarded us two (generous) free kicks on the edge of the area that we failed to take advantage of. Then, deep into injury time, we mustered our first shot on target – and the game’s best chance – as Jones collected the ball on his chest and muscled his way through, but could only fire straight into Foster’s grateful arms.

And so the 0-0 that was on the cards from about the 10th minute came to pass – a match to be swiftly forgotten by all who saw it. These two sides played their first ever competitive league game against each other some 125 years ago on the first day of the inaugural football league season. There can’t have been many worse games between them since then than the one at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday.

 

2)  And now for something completely different?

I keep reading that Saturday’s game was ‘an improvement’ on recent weeks and a step forward. Sorry, but I’m struggling to see that. We were tighter at the back perhaps (although we were hardly tested in that department) and there were some decent individual displays, but on the whole our attacking play was every bit as poor as it was against West Ham and arguably weaker than it was against Fulham and Newcastle.

What’s more, Tony Pulis’ post-match talk again implied that he doesn’t ‘get it’, pointing the finger at Jones’ late miss and suggesting if things were “going for” us it would have gone in. For the last time, we are NOT somehow ‘unlucky’ to be in this situation. The problems run deeper than that, we are not playing well, and if Pulis can’t see that then we really are in trouble.

Even with our impressive home record over the past year or so, we’ve seen numerous winnable home games drawn instead because we are incapable of breaking down teams who come to the Brit to shut up shop and protect the point.

Steve  Clarke’s Baggies’ side were happy to try to pick us off on the counter attack, and going forward we were, once again, entirely predictable. We did look good down our left at times, but too often attacking options were thin on the ground. Our midfielders get a lot of stick for playing the ball sideways and backwards, but as this game showed more than most, there’s so rarely a pass on ahead of them. The Crouch/Walters strike pairing is an inert one and we just don’t get enough players into good attacking positions. Etherington slung over a number of decent balls into the box on Saturday but each time there was just one heavily marked striker in the area tasked with trying to get on the end of it – short of signing inspector gadget to play on his own up front, that isn’t ever going to lead to a plethora of chances.

Perhaps to an extent this was a confidence issue, with players fearful of making a mistake after our run of defeats. Nevertheless, mustering one solitary shot on target – in the 92nd minute at that – at home to a team very much in our peer group simply isn’t good enough.

We did at least try to break the Baggies’ resistance, as the full backs were given rare licence to support the attack, the wingers swapped wings and Jerome and Walters swapped positions throughout – but that lack of guile, that lack of a player to make the right runs at the right time, that predictability, all hampered our efforts once again.

Yet still the manager largely persists with the same formation and personnel, with Cameron Jerome’s recent (deserved) run the only injection of fresh life into the side. Is it not time to try and shake things up a bit more dramatically?

Either we can find places to get the best out of our attacking talent and affords them a degree of freedom – Adam, Crouch, Etherington – even Shea, Owen and Pennant – or we utilise the personnel that fits the manager’s beloved system well.

I hate to bang on about the Liverpool Boxing Day game, but that was the only time this season we’ve seen Stoke at their high-octane, snarling best. So why has the manager gone out of his way not to select that line up since? Surely, given that the current selection isn’t doing the business, it’s worth trying to recapture that performance rather than sticking with a starting XI that clearly isn’t working? What’s the worst that can happen?

If the manager could pick a team capable of playing like that, with two wingers, and a player leading the line who was able to provide an outlet and close down opponents at speed, there’d be no need for increasingly desperate pleas to “get behind the team” – the crowd would already be well and truly energised anyway.

As it is, the lifelessness we’re seeing on the pitch is hardly going to inspire much passion in the stands – a connection that many refuse to see.

 

3) Promise on the left hand side

While our right hand side was often defective  – Shotton defensively, in being regularly out of position, Jerome offensively, in basically being Forrest Gump, unable to do anything beyond running in a straight line, like a glitchy Sensible Soccer player – down our left we looked a lot more accomplished.

For all that Matthew Etherington has appeared to be a busted flush for some time now, we are a poorer side without him, and his return was a welcome one. Full of running and more eager to get on the ball than usual, Etherington was our most consistent threat, always looking to get to the byline and get a cross in. After a few weeks of dreadful corners and free kicks from the likes of Whelan and Adam, it was good to have him back to actually provide some strong, whip-smart delivery into the danger zones, even if there was frequently nobody there to capitalise. That he got a rare 90 minutes under his belt as well can only be a good thing. Whatever passes for our attacking threat needs all the help it can get these days, and Etherington – whether fit and firing or fragile and not far from finished – is going to be an important player for the rest of this season at least.

If Etherington’s return was a no-brainer, Geoff Cameron’s display at left back came as a pleasant surprise. For me, it was the most assured game he’s had yet at full back. He read the game well, made more tackles than anyone on the pitch and his positioning was much improved. He also looked a lot better on the ball, making some marauding runs forward and starting many of our attacks by actually passing it rather than only ever deploying the big long diagonal our left backs are so often instructed to use – Cameron to Nzonzi was the game’s most common passing combination. He provided Etherington with better support in attack than a Stoke left back has in ages. Ok, so it didn’t make that much difference on the day in terms of creating anything, but our American star is showing signs of getting to grips with the full back slots between this game and his showing at Newcastle at right back, and that’s encouraging. I’m Still not convinced he’s the answer, long-term, to any of the questions in our starting XI, but credit where it’s due.

 

4)  The Baggies were disappointing, but their season has been anything but

Having won three of their last four coming into this game, I was surprised that West Brom didn’t smell blood against a side like us who were low on confidence and there for the taking. In fact, Steve Clarke’s men were staggeringly unambitious. It was clear from the outset that they’d be overjoyed with a draw as they sat back and occasionally, half-heartedly, tried to hit us on the break. They began brazenly time wasting from as early as about half an hour in, to the extent that Mike Dean decided to book Brunt for it. Though they probably just about created more genuine chances than us, that really isn’t saying much for a team that currently sits 8th in the Premier League, recently won at Anfield and put four past Sunderland at the Stadium of Light earlier in the season. Where was that side?

The Baggies have been decidedly unimpressive in both league games against us this season – surely it can’t be fear of the dreaded ‘hoodoo’ that’s making them play beneath themselves in these fixtures? Of all the teams we’ve played twice in the league this season, they are the only ones to fail to score past us.

Despite their fans chanting “hoooooof” at us throughout the afternoon, apparently under the impression their boys are the second coming of 1982-era Brazil, they were every bit as responsible as ourselves for the lack of quality on show in what was a visual dung heap of a contest.

That said, it’s been a terrific season for WBA on the whole, and on a relative shoestring Clarke seems to have assembled a team capable of mixing it as well as playing a bit. They have disciplined, tough-tackling midfielders who can keep the ball in Mulumbu and Yacob; different options in attack in the power of Lukaku and pace of Shane Long (as well as Odemwingie and Fortune, who can both cause problems on their day); and a well-organised back line. Fatigue seems to be setting in for them now, and the element of surprise has begun to wear off a touch. Yet in many ways, despite the poverty of their play in the games against us, they have become the team that we should have been looking to become this season. And that hurts.

 

5) Whelan’s injury might ultimately work in his – and our – favour

As any manager worth his salt would, TP was quick to publicly defend his player when Glenn Whelan’s form came under the spotlight in midweek. It can’t be ignored, however, that the Irishman has been abysmal for a few months now and while Pulis was right to back his man to the outside world, he’s done him no favours by continuing to select him.

As we’ve persisted with Whelan, his confidence has continued to drop with each terrible performance, and appeared to hit rock bottom against West Brom. He was second to everything, even when he was far closer to the ball than any opposing player. His touch was appalling, and his decision making unfathomable as he again threatened to play us into trouble, as he did last week at Newcastle.

It was perhaps a shade inconvenient for the manager then, given his staunch public defence of the player, that Glenn managed to do himself a mischief and did not reappear for the second half. Hopefully it’s nothing serious, but in the long-term a spell on the sidelines may well turn out to be a blessing in disguise, both for him and the team, as it’s done what the ever-stubborn Pulis wouldn’t do – removed him from the equation.

Whelan’s replacement, Dean Whitehead, was himself pretty bad on the ball but his harrying and pressing helped us to get on the front foot more regularly and to push us further up the pitch. Hopefully Whelan will sit out the next few games to get his head right and he can come back stronger.

In contrast, Whelan’s midfield partner Steven Nzonzi looked a cut above anyone else on the field and his own form is gradually returning. Nzonzi was everywhere, sitting to tidy up at the back on the rare occasions we were under pressure, and showing real positivity and a turn of pace in looking to get on the ball and drive us forward in attack. He made more passes than any other player on either side and more final third passes than any other Stoke player – one in the eye for those who complain that he’s only capable of passing sideways.

Despite the frustrations of the day and our largely toothless, predictable attacking play, there were flickers and flashes here and there to remind us that we actually have some very decent players and shouldn’t in anything like the mess we’re in danger of sliding into. A reversal in fortunes should be within reach with a mere cosmetic nip/tuck, rather than major surgery. Paging Dr Pulis…

The Top 5 Conclusions from Stoke City 0-1 West Ham

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1)  A deserved defeat

A lifeless defeat to a London club, with the game’s only goal coming on the stroke of half time. You didn’t exactly have to reach far to see parallels between this game and that of the previous weekend, even if our conquerers this time round were Sam Allardyce’s East End boys, as opposed to Fulham’s West End girls. The only significant difference is that, if possible, this defeat was even worse, the Hammers proving full value for their win – in fact they could have won by another two or three.

The inclusion of Cameron Jerome in attack was the only real surprise sprung by Tony Pulis in his starting line up, with Marc Wilson taking the suspended Robert Huth’s place at centre back as reported in midweek.

The early signs were promising as we forced a number of corners and throws. Just two minutes in we caught West Ham napping with a short corner, only for Michael Kightly to blaze over with an effort so bad it was impossible to work out whether it was a cross or a shot.

The Crouch/Jerome pairing initially looked as if it might bear fruit, the former having Stoke’s only shot of the first half from the latter’s flick-on. However, our threat soon fizzled out and before long, as was the case against Fulham, we were back to being disjointed and unable to string three passes together.

West Ham had been forced to make two changes in the opening 10 minutes when Joe Cole’s cheese-string body failed on him again and Crouch’s overhead kick left Matthew Taylor concussed. Yet they did not feel any ill effects from these changes – quite the reverse in fact.

Gaining control of midfield all too easily, the visitors began to cause us problems, finding space behind our full backs. Matt Jarvis on the left was a constant menace, while Andy Carroll was winning everything in the air. Stoke, for their part, were never capable of properly clearing their lines, every out ball magnetically falling to a man in claret and blue.

It was the Hammers who would create the bulk of the game’s chances, starting when James Collins header clipped the bar after 24 minutes, then Carroll went close with a header not long afterwards that went wide when he probably should have at least hit the target.

Still, with half time approaching the game was still there to be won and despite our own shortcomings we still had reason to feel confident we could get a result. That confidence took a hit in first half injury time however, when confusion among our defence led to Jack Collison – one of those early subs – having the time and space in the box to drill a low shot past Asmir Begovic. Suddenly, a mediocre half had become a disastrous one.

If anything, the second period was even worse. Stoke huffed and puffed but created virtually nothing against a well organised Hammers back line, our constant aerial bombardment all-too-depressingly countered.

We were hardly helped by diabolical referee Jonathan Moss, who’d clearly decided from the outset that the best approach to a game featuring two of the league’s dirtiest sides was to adopt a policy of ‘see no evil, hear no evil’, and give absolutely nothing.

Stoke were increasingly limited to woeful long shots as the aimless high balls were headed away time after time and the wide players were unstinting in their inability to beat their man. Again, as at Fulham, set piece delivery was well below par, and too many players were off their game.

TP made three attack-minded substitutions as we became increasingly desperate, Shea, Jones and Adam replacing Kightly, Walters and Whelan. Yet Kenwyne was, for a second straight week, largely anonymous and Shea was tidy enough but not incisive. Adam was the pick of the three, exerting an influence in a deeper role as we attempted to belatedly splutter into life.

Yet chances were still hard to come by and we were leaving ourselves vulnerable on the counter. Again Jarvis got in behind us, with a first rate save from Begovic keeping us alive. Ricardo Vaz Te fired over, and Collison again wriggled clear only for our goalkeeper (and; unbeknownst to him, the linesman’s flag) to come to our rescue again.

Allardyce’s side, from an early point in the game, were showing an enthusiasm for blatant time wasting not seen since our own transparent attempts to run down the clock at Upton Park in November. Moss allowed them to, neglecting to book a single member of their side for any of their antics, from kicking the ball away, to feigning injury, to picking up the ball to take a goal keep from the other side of the penalty area, all the while moving with all the speed of a zombie with trench foot.

It was deep into injury time when we mustered our first genuine chance of the entire contest, as Adam walloped a vicious, dipping 25-yard effort against the crossbar.

As the umpteenth chorus of ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ struck up from the away end, the home crowd sat in miserable silence, forced to contemplate a day of dreadful inaccuracies in all areas, one where nothing worked. We’ve had too many of those days since the turn of the year. Our problems cannot be swept under the carpet any longer.

 

2)  Cameron Jerome is worth persevering with

I’ve been banging the Cameron Jerome drum for a while now, so despite the view of many that he isn’t effective when he starts games, I was pleased that TP included him in his first XI on Saturday – and in his natural position up front, no less. Jerome deserved his chance.

The dynamics of his partnership with Peter Crouch were interesting: Jerome started as the line-leading striker with Crouch in the hole, but the two seemed to regularly switch between these positions, and at times even resembled a conventional front two. Whether this was deliberate or a result of one or both struggling to get to grips with their roles I couldn’t quite work out.

Unfortunately, the inclusion of Jerome’s pace in attack didn’t make us any more potent. Against a typically robust, Allardyce-arranged West Ham defence, we barely conjured a scoring opportunity worthy of the name, with service to the front men, as usual, non-existent.

That’s not to say, however, that the experiment was a total failure. We saw the value of Jerome’s pace early on when he chased down a stray ball and pressured Jussi Jaaskelainen into conceding a corner. Later in the first half, he again got on the end of a Glenn Whelan ball into the channels and robbed a defender to force another corner. After the break, he received the ball from a Crouch knock-on and spun away from his defender in the box, only to lose his footing at the crucial moment.  Though he was no better than decent on the day, and almost invisible in the second half, in pulling defenders wide to create space for others, and winning more of the set pieces that continue to carry our primary goal threat, Jerome suggested he deserves another run out to prove himself an asset from the start.

On the flip side, the apparent confusion as to who was supposed to be the withdrawn striker saw our midfield get overrun from an early stage, and it was a foothold we never regained. Nothing was sticking up front, which meant that no sooner had we cleared the ball it came back at us as West Ham pressed forward for the latter two-thirds of the first half. That would be bad enough away from home, but at the Brit, against the worst away side in the league, it’s unacceptable.

Perhaps trying Jerome in tandem with a player more familiar with the demands of that withdrawn position (Jones or Walters for example) should be the next step as we seek to solve our goalscoring problem, but at the moment, Jerome is one of the few attacking players at the club to stake a legitimate claim for a starting place.

 

3)  A (mostly) encouraging start for Marc Wilson at centre back

There was some surprise when it emerged that Marc Wilson was the manager’s preferred option to fill in for Huth in the heart of our defence. Geoff Cameron plays at centre back for the United States and had filled in there for us (with mixed results) when we switched to a three man defence against Aston Villa and Wigan earlier in the season. He seemed far and away the most sensible option to partner Ryan Shawcross, especially given our dearth of left backs and the fact that an afternoon taking a battering from Andy Carroll didn’t seem a wise step in the Irishman’s path back to match fitness following a broken leg.

In the event however, Wilson performed quite well. I wouldn’t go as far as the sponsors did in making him their man of the match, but he kept his head above water in a difficult situation. As good as our first choice centre backs are, it was refreshing to see a ‘footballer’ at the back; a player confident with the ball at his feet, who could look for options to play the ball out to and read the game well (certainly better than he does at left back). He was also surprisingly good in the air – for some reason, he always strikes me as one of the smaller players in our team of giants, but he’s still 6 ft 2 and timed his jumps well in when the ball was pumped in his direction.

Nevertheless, he wasn’t entirely convincing there and his deployment in central defence still doesn’t feel like an entirely satisfactory solution. Most obviously, the one moment where he didn’t read the game well led to West Ham’s goal, as he appeared confused and out of position when the ball was played through to Collison, in the box, who was freer than John Inman in Are You Being Served.

Also, at times his will to ‘play’ at the back fell just the wrong side of ‘fannying about’ – and a problem for anyone in our defence with ambitions beyond booting it long to the big man is that our obsession with ‘shape’ means there’s rarely anyone making the kind of run to receive the ball.

Nevertheless, like Jerome he did enough to be worth another look. He’s set to retain his place in the middle for the duration of Huth’s suspension, and with more sprightly strikers than Carroll on the horizon – such as Cisse, Long and Lukaku – his suitability as a centre half is about to be thrown into sharp focus.

 

4)  Certain players need to be taken out of the firing line.

Ironic cheers from sections of the crowd greeted the substitutions of Jon Walters and Glenn Whelan. It was unedifying to see and hear this treatment meted out to two players who – though not world beaters – have done nothing but give every ounce of sweat for the cause every time they’ve worn the shirt, and have played an important part in some of the club’s finest moments of recent times.

As uncomfortable as I felt at that reaction – and I don’t agree with booing – TP has to accept a fair amount of culpability for putting his men in that position in the first place. Both have been in shocking form of late. At Fulham, Walters was the worst player on the pitch by a distance, and while he was marginally better against West Ham, proving typically full of running, on the ball he offered us nothing once again in that wide right position.

Whelan meanwhile, was nothing short of atrocious, turning in a Mr Bean-like disaster-area of a performance in midfield. Nothing he tried came off – when defending he always seemed to be the wrong side of the player he was marking, while his passes too often were either to heavily marked team mates, behind team mates, or just straight into touch. In short, he played like what he is – a player woefully short of confidence.

He has been dreadfully poor for some time now, and any improvement shown a fortnight ago at Craven Cottage was washed away by his utter stinker on Saturday. He and Walters must now be ‘given a rest’ from the starting line up and allowed to lick their wounds and regain their confidence.

I still think that, when on form, he is the best option to partner Steven Nzonzi in central midfield out of all the midfielders currently at the club. In the form he’s been in so far this year though, literally any of them would be a better option. I don’t believe playing Charlie Adam there is viable long-term (he can’t tackle, for starters), but he made a difference there on Saturday and is probably at least worth a look in that deeper position. Dean Whitehead is the footballing equivalent of a golden retriever but at least you can trust him to do the basics. Even Wilson Palacios couldn’t’ be that much worse at this point.

Walters, for his part, should either play in the hole or not at all.

Pulis is doing neither player any favours at the moment, and that stubbornness of his, which can be an asset at times, now risks plunging us into a tailspin.

 

5)  A positive result would merely have papered over the cracks

It’s never nice to lose – especially when losing can so easily become a habit – but to get anything from that game would have allowed TP to hide behind the result when it was a performance that summed up our appalling start to 2013.

This was a defeat that really hammered home (no pun intended) the crushing predictability of our play. We could never find space, we had no ideas beyond high balls into the box from the flanks or the big hoof from one of the defenders up to one of the strikers – we still don’t even bother to vary our crossing with the odd drilled in low ball from the byline. Any half decent defence can deal with us comfortably. At least TP took steps to try (albeit unsuccessfully) and eradicate  the ‘no goals until the subs come on’ problem by starting Jerome, but it’s going to take more than that.

Yet our manager chose again to ignore the problems, blaming the ref and (for the first time in a while) having a pop at the fans, highlighting the fact that this was only our second home defeat in a year. That’s true of course, but it’s also true that we’ve only won one league game this year and that we have failed to ‘push on’ this season, despite no cup distractions and despite bringing in another seven players over the summer.

When you’re so wedded to the percentages game, as we have been for so long, very often the only thing that distinguishes a good performance from an awful one is the scoreline. So perhaps only a run without a win will get the message across that something needs to change.

It’s interesting that a defeat by West Ham almost exactly two years ago provided the catalyst for the club’s best performances since promotion. After a baffling team selection and 3-0 drubbing at the Boleyn Ground in March 2011 took a bad run of one win in seven to a new low, and the spectre of fan discontent began to rise, Pulis made several key changes for the FA Cup quarter final a week later against the same opposition, and the rest is history. Will defeat to the Hammers again sting him into making the changes that turn our season around?

With his back against the wall, Pulis must now either again pull a winning formula out of the bag or face the beginning of the end.

With the media beginning to pick up on the first genuine signs of supporter unrest, it may already be too late. Perhaps too many have seen it all before, especially since every winning combination is ultimately discarded in favour of the increasingly counter-productive safety-first approach.

It’s sad, in a great many ways, but we may have witnessed a turning point in the relationship between Tony Pulis and Stoke City fans – and therefore in the manager’s time at the football club.

The Top 5 Conclusions from Fulham 1-0 Stoke City 23.02.13

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1) Nothing to see here

Certainly not from a Stoke perspective at least. A weekend preview on The Guardian’s site seemed to ruffle the feathers of a few Stoke fans in describing this game as ‘the season’s first truly meaningless encounter,’ but in the end it proved a largely accurate summation of events at Craven Cottage on Saturday. The game was a lifeless affair settled by a moment of brilliance from the only world-class player on the pitch.

A low-scoring contest always seemed likely -  even more so when it became clear that we would be playing 4-5-1 with no less than three defensive midfielders and a defensive winger on the park. Yet it was Stoke who created the first real chance of the afternoon, when Jon Walters charged into the box from the right and saw his cross/shot blocked by Mark Schwarzer. Fulham, like us, were pretty sluggish but comfortably the better of the teams in the first half, winning a couple of early corners and firing a warning shot across our bows soon afterwards when Karagounis’ powerful free kick was well saved by Asmir Begovic. The Cottagers (snigger) were causing problems down the Stoke left, as mercurial/erratic Bryan Ruiz floated around the final third causing mischief and the lively Ashkan ‘moves like’ Dejageh continually found space down that channel.

Stoke were working hard but lacked the nous or quality to make anything happen, and as the half drifted on we looked to be in danger of losing our discipline. Steven Nzonzi’s nose was broken by a stray Berbatov arm; an occurrence it’s fair to say he took pretty badly. The Frenchman proceeded to embark on a solo vengeance mission the like of which hadn’t been seen since Uma Thurman despatched the Crazy 88s in Kill Bill, and was lucky not to see red when he deliberately and blatantly whacked Ruiz in the face. Add to that Robert Huth’s elbow smash on Philippe Senderos after the break and it’s a wonder that we managed to finish the game with 11 men.

Our plan to keep it tight was going well enough until right before half time. Huth only half-cleared a high ball into the area, his looped header sitting up nicely for Berbatov, who showed incredible technique as he unleashed a perfect volley, Hotshot Hamish style, high into the net, giving Begovic no chance whatsoever. One of the best goals I’ve ever seen live, it was clear we were in trouble from the moment he set himself to strike.

Stoke came out with renewed purpose after the break, and would go on to have the best of the second half. First Peter Crouch robbed Senderos and got into the box, where his shot was well saved by Schwarzer. Then we won a penalty, as Ryan Shotton’s twisty long-throw was flicked on at the near post to debutant Brek Shea (a first half replacement for the injured Matthew Etherington) whose shot was blocked by the arm of Dejagah.

Up stepped Walters, to the enthusiasm of literally no one after his miss against Chelsea. He changed his technique this time, opting to place rather than blast his kick, but the outcome was the same, as Schwarzer saved it easily.

That seemed to deflate us and the game started to fizzle out, with few chances either way. Berbatov nearly scored another beauty, louchely flicking the ball over a defender before producing a full stretch save from Begovic with a low drive towards the bottom-right hand corner. Jon Arne Riise also blasted a couple of potshots over for the hosts; sub Cameron Jerome did likewise in a better position for Stoke, although he’d wandered offside anyway. There was little to get excited about, as was evidenced by Stoke fans singing old songs from yesteryear – everything from ‘Ooh Georgie Berry’ to ‘There’s Only One Steino’ emanated from the Putney End (even Mike Sheron got a mention) with none of our present day heroes doing anything to catch the eye.

Berbatov was the only player worth watching, and a number of Stokies joined in with the ovation the languid magician received as he sauntered off in injury time, a prince in a sea of paupers.

We had one last tilt at getting something from the game, forcing a succession of long throws and corners, but to no avail. Begovic looked to join the fray at that final corner, but his manager ordered him not to – providing an appropriately joyless end to a joyless afternoon.

 

2) Plenty of alarm, but no surprises

With Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln expected to do well at the Oscars this evening, it’s ironic that old Abe’s famous quote about not being able to fool all of the people all of the time – once tossed in Arsene Wenger’s direction by Tony Pulis – could now equally apply to Mr Pulis himself.

In his post-game comments, Pulis, while accepting that we lacked quality in the final third and only had ourselves to blame, once again wittered on about ifs, buts and maybes, a sort of continuation on a theme started before the game when he blamed bad luck for our away from and insisted we’d played better away from the Brit than in previous years.

Taking the comments in isolation relating specifically to the Fulham game, you could almost make a case for that – Stoke were the better side in the second half, they did have a couple of decent chances and missed penalty and there wasn’t much to choose between the two teams beyond a pretty special winning goal.

We can’t take those comments in isolation though. Because it’s the same old story every time we play away. Fulham was just another crushingly predictable game following a crushingly predictable team. The only unexpected occurrence associated with the entire match was Sky’s baffling decision to screen it to the nation.

Once again, as we did at Arsenal, we set up in a 4-5-1 with Peter Crouch up front, as if we were going to the Nou Camp. Once again, the majority of our attacking players were on the bench (if Charlie Adam isn’t even going to feature in a genuine midfield three, what’s the point of him being here?), and once again, containment appeared to be the priority, with everything else a bonus.

Fulham themselves were viciously average, which meant that when we were forced to come at them after going a goal down, an equaliser didn’t seem completely out of the question. Yet time and again the abject poverty of our play let us down. Our passing and ball control was in many cases abysmal, we struggled to string any half decent moves together or get into any kind of rhythm, and we were utterly edentulous in attack, bereft of invention, pace or movement.

Martin Jol’s team can mix it more than their reputation would have us believe, and the big Dutchman knew just how to deal with us, crowding out our wide players and doubling up on the target man. Hangeland and Senderos have received praise for their performances but we made it easy for them – how many times now have we played Fulham and Hangeland has had his easiest game of the season, comfortably heading away the myriad high balls pumped in his direction? Yet once again the approach was the same, as we persisted with the big punt upfield (Begovic to Crouch was our most common pass combination) long after it had ceased to be effective.

There is no excusing or explaining away our away record. We have won just once in our last 23 games on the road. We have finished in the bottom four of the away table every year but one since promotion. Our away form and performances, contrary to the manager’s protestations, have not progressed significantly since that inaugural schooling at the Reebok in August 2008.

Luck doesn’t come into it. Something has to change.

 

3)  Patience is the watchword for Shea and Wilson

Craven Cottage saw both a warm welcome and a welcome return on the left hand side with, respectively, an earlier than expected debut for Brek Shea and Marc Wilson’s comeback from a broken leg. It was a difficult afternoon for both.

Wilson looked keen to get back into the swing of things, and in the first half he made a few important interventions as the home side focused the bulk of their attacks down the Stoke left. However, he was, understandably, a little on the rusty side, making a couple of rash challenges and being caught out of position at times as well. As the game went on his distribution seemed to worsen, with several loose passes under no pressure (he completed just 48% of his passes, compared to Ryan Shotton’s 79% and the 72% he managed in his last full game, at Old Trafford) – although we did also see some skilful flourishes from him in shielding the ball under pressure on occasion, pulling off some nice turns and displaying some good footwork.

I don’t quite understand some of the eulogising about him from fans and from Tony Pulis, and I have real concerns about his ability to support his winger, but there’s no doubt we’ve missed him (especially given how long it’s been since our last clean sheet). The sooner he’s back to full fitness, the better.

Shea was thrown into the action just 26 minutes in after Etherington picked up a knock – which arguably does not say much for Michael Kightly’s future at the club, given he was overlooked in favour of a player who hasn’t played for four months through injury. The tallest winger I’ve ever seen, Shea looked out of his depth in the first half, not seeming sure about what he was supposed to be doing. However, like the team overall, he did improve after the interval as the nerves settled. His touch became more assured, he fired a decent shot wide and he won us the penalty. His link play with Wilson and Whelan was tidy as well, which was encouraging.

There was little evidence of the pace we’ve been told he possesses, but I was pleased that TP was prepared to blood him so early. With safety all but assured this season, let’s hope we use the remainder of our games to ease him in and give him a good taste of life in the Premier League.

 

4) Steven Nzonzi has gone off the boil

Steven Nzonzi endured a thoroughly miserable afternoon – perhaps more so than the rest of us. After his conk-cracking clash with Berbatov he seemed to totally lose his head, gesticulating to the home fans, smacking Ruiz and generally doing a good impression of a man who’d bet on himself getting sent off. Maybe that wouldn’t have been the worst thing, given his dreadful performance, often proving an active hindrance to our attempts to defend and proving uncharacteristically wasteful in his distribution. He did knock a lovely ball through that Jerome failed to anticipate in the second half, but that was a rare positive in what was otherwise his worst performance in a Stoke shirt to date.

The quality of Nzonzi’s performances has declined sharply since the turn of the year. Gone is the composed class act of the autumn months, who was such a breath of fresh air in the wasteland of our midfield, adding real drive and rarely wasting a pass. In his place is a sullen looking imposter, prone to needless fouls, careless passing and apparent apathy. He does not look a happy camper.

It’s not entirely clear why. I keep reading speculation that the constraints we put on our players are making some of them frustrated and that they might be the source of Nzonzi’s strops. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but if it is, (although it’s a frustration many fans share), the player has to suck it up. Sorry, we all have to do things we don’t like as part of our job. They’re professionals paid tens of thousands a week. Get on with it.

Something that has been worrying me of late is that a lot of the things we’ve relied on in the past haven’t been working. At Fulham the ‘impact subs’ weren’t effective and nor were the vast majority of our set plays; but the chief quality that has got us this far is our team spirit and unity. Once the players stop giving their all for 90 minutes and pulling in the same direction, we really don’t have a whole lot left. That’s perhaps the greatest strength and most damning indictment of Tony Pulis – he has instilled such an important attribute in his team, but with £100m has failed to add the sufficient quality to go further.

However, it’s a difficult balance. Nzonzi is the best midfielder to play for Stoke for years, and Jermaine Pennant one of the best wingers. But equally quality alone is nothing without the right attitude and application, and we need to be careful about replacing top professionals like Higginbotham and Delap with players who might be technically superior but won’t buy into our ethos. That way trouble lies. Ask QPR.

Regardless, we need the focused, dominant Steven Nzonzi of the first half of the season back – and sharpish.

 

5)  A few miscellaneous positives and negatives

Starting with the good…

Ryan Shotton was the closest thing we had to a man of the match, making a number of important challenges and looking strong defensively. He has played himself into the side, and while his viability as a long-term option at right back is debatable, he’s having a quietly impressive season, all things considered.

Equally, in the context of a truly rotten couple of months, Glenn Whelan took a few baby steps on the road to recovery with his best game in some time. The Irishman was the most hard-working and positive of our midfielders on the day. No Stoke player attempted or completed more passes, and he also made the most attacking third passes of any Stoke player.

I also thought Peter Crouch had a decent game. He had a thankless task as the lone striker but got into good positions and nearly scored a goal from nothing. He does seem less enthusiastic about challenging for the ball in the air since his gob/elbow interface with Fabricio Colloccini, but there were a number of occasions on Saturday where he brought the ball out of the air immaculately on his chest and made a bit of space in a prime position to lay the ball off to an onrushing team mate, only to find they were still all 30 yards behind him. It was a microcosm of the Crouch situation itself – he’s a striker of quality that, with a proper partner and support from midfield would still be one of the best strikers in the league, but whose strengths are not catered to in our set up.

Right, the negatives…

Jon Walters had as bad a game as I’ve seen him have. Stuck out wide on the right, he was nothing short of a liability. Every touch seemed wayward, he lost the ball with alarming frequency and countless attacks were strangled at birth as a result. He was the worst player on the pitch by a distance.

I like Jon. He’s still the best option we have to play in that godforsaken withdrawn striker role and I can even see an argument for using him out wide in certain circumstances (to do the leg work with a Jones/Jerome partnership in attack for example). However, I don’t understand why he’s etched in stone as the first name of the team sheet or why the manager cannot countenance dropping him at any cost. He could do with a rest and being taken out of the firing line; we could do with exploring other options in the starting XI. It might do everyone involved some good.

It’s not going to happen though. It’s a total blind spot for TP.

Take the penalty, for instance. Nobody in the away end had any confidence that Walters was going to stick it away. Looking at the body language of the players, I didn’t get the impression they had much faith either. Yet after the game Pulis stated that he will remain our designated taker, despite missing our last two. Does the lack of a Plan B even extend to penalty taking?

Another negative was the subs’ lack of impact. Although Cameron Jerome’s earlier than usual introduction did force Fulham to defend a bit deeper, his individual performance was poor. He showed a lack of composure in front of goal and his decision-making was awful, as he frequently failed to anticipate passes into the channels or make the right runs, to the visible frustration of his striker partner and the midfielders.

Kenwyne Jones, meanwhile, was this time no improvement whatsoever on Crouch, and was easily taken care of by Fulham’s hulking centre backs.

We’ve relied heavily this season on a strategy whereby we bank on keeping it tight and bringing on the subs to do some damage. When that stops working, as it did on Saturday, what then?

It was an afternoon of banging our collective heads against a brick wall…and as long as the manager keeps referencing ‘luck’ and ‘things dropping for us’, it’s clear nothing is going to change on our travels any time soon.

The Top Five Conclusions from Stoke City 2-1 Reading 09.02.13

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1) As important a three points as we’ll get this season

Better. Not spectacular, but better. Ultimately, this was a Championship-standard football match settled by one moment of Premier League quality. Stoke thoroughly deserved their win against a poor Reading side who barely gave Asmir Begovic a save to make over 90-odd minutes. For all that, we were hanging on a bit at the end, but when you consider that Reading went into this game with one league defeat in their last seven games, and in nine games in 2013 Stoke had only beaten Crystal Palace (and needed a replay and extra time to manage that), then this really can’t be viewed as anything other than a good (and vital) win.

I thought it was one of the manager’s more positive team selections; square pegs were kept largely to a minimum, with only Andy Wilkinson being played out of position at left back. Both wingers played, and the decisions to leave out Geoff Cameron and Kenwyne Jones were understandable in light of the fact that both had travelled thousands of miles in midweek to represent their countries in the CONCACAF world cup qualifying group.

The first half was really quite dire, with neither team contributing anything of note during the opening half hour. The closest we came in that time was an Etherington effort that trickled into Adam Federici’s arms and a Crouch header well wide after some tidy play involving both full backs and wingers. The Royals then enjoyed their best spell of the game midway through the half, as we repeatedly ceded possession to them and they had plenty of the ball in their attacking third. Yet their cutting edge was non-existent, and it wasn’t long before we were back on top again. Ryan Shawcross nearly hooked one in after a corner, only for Federici, having one of his better games, to push the ball over with an octopus-like flailing of limbs. Michael Kightly cut inside and fired a decent effort at the near post that Federici managed to block, then crossed for Crouch to control and hit a stunning acrobatic volley that was heading for the top corner until the Royals’ goalkeeper clawed it over. Had it gone in, the lanky hitman would surely have taken goal of the season honours for a second year running. From there, we forced five successive corners but couldn’t make them count. Nonetheless, we finished the half on top in what was shaping up to be a poor game between two poor sides.

That pattern continued after the break; Reading offered precious little attacking threat of their own with the almost supernaturally disinterested Pavel Pogrebnyak trotting about on his own up front, but were dealing relatively comfortably with everything we threw at them from both set pieces and open play. That only changed with the introduction of Kenwyne Jones and Cameron Jerome for Kightly and Crouch. Their arrival immediately pushed the Reading defence back, and balls over the top began to look more fruitful with our forwards able to get in behind the visitors’ back line.

The breakthrough came almost immediately; with virtually his first touch, Jones won a free kick that was pumped into the box, where the ball was just nicked off Walters’ toe at the last second and put behind by a Royals defender. From the resulting corner, Reading, for the first time, fell asleep, allowing Robert Huth to power in his first league goal of the season off the underside of the bar. Buoyed by the goal, we began to look more dangerous. Jon Walters, anonymous up front, was having more joy out wide, while Jones and Jerome were linking well in attack.

With just under 10 minutes remaining, we scored the game’s decisive goal. A long ball from Shawcross was knocked on by a defender as he challenged Walters in the air,and despite being virtually throttled by his marker, Jerome took the ball on his with his back to goal, shrugged off the defender, spun and leathered a shot on the half volley that gave Federici no chance. It was a superb striker’s goal and another from a player who has won us a number of points this season with his impact off the bench.

It should’ve been game over but our second seemed to belatedly rouse Reading, who now came forward. They snatched one back from a near-post header at a corner that was really down to some very sloppy play and an incredibly feeble attempt at marking from Walters, who allowed Adrian Mariappa to get ahead of him far too easily. That set up a nervy conclusion in which we had to defend for our lives as Brian McDermott’s men sought an unlikely equaliser.

Again though, they couldn’t create anything when push came to shove. There were howls for a penalty from the Royals bench when Michael Oliver’s failed to award a penalty at the death as Adam Le Fondre went down under Ryan Shotton’s challenge. It was a clumsy tackle, but the diminutive striker made far too much of it, and Oliver had already bottled what looked like a penalty for us when Walters was felled as he challenged for the rebound after Federici parried Whelan’s shot.

That didn’t stop a sulky McDermott having a little cry about it after the match and insisting his team deserved something from the game, showing himself, like his celebrity doppelganger George Dawes, to be just a great big baby.

It was perhaps a shade disconcerting to be left hanging on in a game we’d dominated, but it would have been a complete travesty had Reading got anything from this game.

 

2) Back to basics

‘Back to basics’ had been a mantra of TP’s since our alarming second half capitulation at home to Wigan. It started at the Emirates last week, where it began to look as if we’d remembered how to defend, and the Reading game followed that pattern – it was an exercise in restoring confidence and getting back to doing the things that have got us where we are.

On the plus side, we did look more solid, although it has to be said that Reading really didn’t test us. The Royals are one of those promoted sides, like Norwich last season, who seemed to have adopted us as their blueprint, being a generally robust team playing one up front and setting up to try and frustrate us and sneak something later on. A more ambitious team may have caused us more problems. A clean sheet would’ve been nice and was clearly high on Pulis’ agenda, and is fury was molten when we conceded such a soft goal late on.

Still, we were positive and tried to put our stamp on the game, and save for a ten minute spell in each half totally dominated the game. I did feel our play for the first hour (before the changes) was incredibly predictable. Invariably, aerially Reading often seemed to have us sussed. Each one of our crosses into the box was a high one – why don’t we ever seem to mix it up and hammer a few hard, low balls into the mix as well?

It was a similar story with our set plays; McDermott had clearly been studying them at length because every corner we won in the first half saw Federici come out early to make a strong claim for the ball and also saw our runners (such as the centre backs) have their forward charges checked by defenders as the kicks were taken. Unfortunately for the Reading boss, all it took was one lapse for us to punish them, which Huth emphatically did in the second half.

Though this was one of those rare games where we had more possession than our opponents, we were frustratingly slack at times in giving the ball away. Glenn Whelan is in absolutely rotten form at the moment, ceding possession in dangerous areas every game, and was for the second time in three home games lucky to stay on the pitch when his lunge at Leigertwood earned only a yellow card. He could do with a few weeks’ rest to get his head right.

The game was a kind of throwback to our Championship promotion campaigns – a routine, solid home win achieved without really getting anywhere near top gear. We shouldn’t take those for granted. We wanted to win, tried to win and won, and while the quality could – arguably should – have been better, that (certainly at the moment) is good enough for me.

 

3) The subs changed the game (again)

There had been a fair bit of buzz about Adam Le Fondre – the supersub du jour in a season swarming with heroic cameos – but his impact at the Brit was negligible save for his embarrassing dying swan act at the end. It would be our own supersub who would prove the matchwinner, as Cameron Jerome scored his fourth goal of the campaign (all off the bench). That’s seven points he’s earned us now, with winners against Newcastle and Reading and the equaliser against Southampton. While his effort on Saturday wasn’t quite as good as that 33-yard thronker against the Saints,  it was still a brilliant goal, requiring strength to shake off his marker, and considerable balance, power and precision to get away a blistering shot with that level of accuracy on the turn. Had it been RVP, Aguero or even Theo Walcott who’d scored it, the media would be frothing from every available orifice.

We were beginning to look as if we’d run outof ideas before the entrance of Jones and Jerome. Kightly and Crouch had both tested Federici but Reading, defensively, seemed to have the measure of us on the whole. The predictability of our play was doing Crouch no favours – he was tidy on the deck but won only 50% of his aerial duels (he hasn’t looked as effective in the air since being force-fed Fabricio Coloccini’s elbow) and yet he invariably had to receive the ball in the air. Kenwyne Jones gave us a better option on that front and worked hard for the cause (something you can’t always say about him), chasing back and showing no little skill with one shimmy and run past two defenders before working the ball wide. Both goals started with him; the first with Jones being fouled, the second with him chasing down and winning the ball, which was then worked back to Shawcross for a rare, successful long ball into the box. Jerome’s pace meanwhile, unsettled a Reading rearguard that had perhaps felt that their job was done.

Surely now, Jones and Jerome have earned a run of starts together, even if that means having to grin and bear seeing Walters out wide? Time and again they’ve had an impact together, they cause defences problems and they’ve won us games. Yet while I expect Jones and Crouch will be rotated between now and the end of the season, the consensus on Jerome seems to be that he doesn’t do the business when he’s on from the start. However, there isn’t actually anywhere near enough evidence to make such a judgement. As I wrote in The Oatcake fanzine last month in pleading his case:

‘Cameron Jerome has featured in the first XI 19 times for Stoke. 11 of those games came in cup competitions, with Jerome delivering a not-unreasonable four goals (two in the Europa League, two in the FA Cup). In the league, he has scored just once in eight starts, but in half of those games he was marooned out of position on the wing as a sort of turbo-Cresswell (at Spurs, QPR and at home to Man City last season; in that surrender at Eastlands this term) and of his four starts up front, two were in post-Europa shellackings at Sunderland and Bolton from which nobody emerged with any credit, one was last year’s hammering against Citeh (a game TP cared so much about he gave Wilson Palacios a start) and the other was that farce at home to Sunderland in heavy snow, in which he limped off after 40 minutes.’

Four league starts up front and just 40 minutes at home doesn’t seem like enough to write off a player’s credentials to me. Of course, he may well not be the answer – he does seem to lack a football brain and his first touch leaves a lot to be desired – but he brings pace and goals, two things that are in desperately short supply in our side.

This idea that pace is only useful towards the end of games against tired defences is just flat out wrong. It’s useful at any time in the game. It forces defences deeper and means they have to worry about you on the break when they come forward. In the game that essentially won Manchester United their last title, Javier Hernandez scored a goal in the first minute against Chelsea that owed everything to him leaving his marker choking on his dust. Luis Suarez’s pace saw QPR dead and buried at half time. Ricardo Fuller’s pace put West Brom to the sword long before the end of a couple of games that spring to mind. It’s one of the most valuable commodities in football.

With survival all but assured for another season, do we really have anything to lose by giving Jones and Jerome a run together?

 

4) The gig is up for Michael Kightly

I was pleasantly surprised by TP’s decision to play both wingers. We generally look a much better side when we do so, certainly at home – at least that’s what I thought. However, we were actually a lot more dangerous once Michael Kightly had been removed, with Jon Walters moving wide.

It was a big chance for Kightly, who had failed to deliver for quite some time. Up against 35-year old left back Ian Harte, he wouldn’t get a better chance to impress. However, it’s difficult to recall the ex-Wolves man beating him more than once – with that clever shimmy and good ball over for Crouch’s acrobatic near miss – and beyond that he disappointed. His decision-making was uniformly dreadful, his control not much better, and even the simplest pass seemed to be dinked unhelpfully to team mates at shin height.

I’d previously speculated that the problem with Kightly might be little more than a confidence issue, given his promising early season showings such as his goal and assist at Old Trafford. Now, unfortunately, he looks like a player who is simply out of his depth. Whether we’re better with two wingers on the park or not, it’s nigh on impossible to make a case for his continuing inclusion in the starting XI. We need better.

One benefit of having Kightly on the field however, was that it took some of the creative pressure off Matthew Etherington, and consequently he put in a strong showing – for me, he was our man of the match. He worked tirelessly in both attack and defence, and has apparently rediscovered his enthusiasm for running at defenders. Though double marked for much of the early going, he nevertheless found space and put in some telling balls, with one high looped cross being headed wide by Crouch and another whipped in effort winning a corner after he’d made space for himself with a brilliant backheel in the second half.

2012 was Etherington’s annus horriblis, but while undoubtedly a long way past his peak, he’s having a better time of things this season. Hopefully as Brek Shea comes into his own Ethers will become more of an impact sub, but at the moment he still seems the most likely player to provide an assist, and is worth his place.

 

5) Has Ryan Shotton earned another run in the side?

It’s perhaps a controversial suggestion, given that Fenton’s finest is less popular than Justin Lee Collins with a section of our support, but like Etherington, Shotton is much improved this term after a ghastly 2011/12. Saturday was not the finest advert for him defensively; he was worryingly Danny Collins-esque at times in the scant attention he paid to the opposing winger, he left gaps after losing the ball on forays forward, and one such piece of carelessness indirectly led to Reading’s goal. However, on the whole this season he has improved his defensive game and has contributed to a number of clean sheets, notably against Fulham, West Brom, and Aston Villa.

What the Reading game did underline was that he’s the most attack-minded right back at the club. He loves to get forward, and he’s always there to support the right winger and add that crucial extra option that can open up space and prevent defenders doubling up on the attacking players. Nobody made more attacking third passes than him on either side. Four different players have occupied the right back position since the turn of the year (Wilkinson, Shotton, Cameron and Whitehead) and defensively there’s precious little to choose between them. We are, however, as usual screaming out for anything that could vaguely pass for creativity and are still not scoring enough goals. We’re arguably at the stage where sacrificing perhaps the tiniest bit of solidity in an area we can afford to do so, in return for giving an extra edge to our attacking play, is worth the risk – at home at least.

While it’s far from a perfect solution, and Marc Wilson can’t come back soon enough, with Shotton and Wilkinson we did look more balanced than we had in a while with two actual full backs on the park. Between their selection and the last ditch hunt for reinforcements in the wide defensive positions on deadline day, maybe, after all these years (like your nan finally getting the hang of text messaging), Tony Pulis has belatedly realised that full backs are something worth having.

The Top 5 Conclusions from Stoke City 0-1 Manchester City 26.01.13

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1)  Outplayed…and out

On Friday night, as the snow pelted down, and people tweeted pictures of M6 snowball fights and lorries slanted all over the road like the serpents on a snakes and ladders board, it seemed inconceivable that this fourth round tie would go ahead. A partial thaw overnight and the Herculean efforts of our ground staff however, ensured that the day’s early kick-off was on – although one wonders now if they wish they hadn’t bothered.

This was a poor game in which neither side really impressed, although it’s hard to deny the best team won. Yet when the line-ups were announced we had every reason for optimism. TP had selected a very strong team, complete with two wingers and the restoration of the Jones/Walters partnership in attack. With the visiting champions missing certain key players (Yaya Toure being at the ACON, Hart and Aguero on the bench, Nasri and Balotelli not even in the squad) and with the decidedly dodgy Costel Pantilimon in goal, it seemed we might have a chance of causing an upset.

In the event however, Stoke never really got going. In the first half we appeared slow to everything, unable to get the ball and wasteful when we did manage to gain possession. Roberto Mancini’s side were often ponderous, lacked width, but still caused us problems and could easily have been 3-0 up at half time. The dangerous Carlos Tevez was a headache throughout the opening 45 minutes, forcing an early save from Thomas Sorensen at the near post and then rolling Ryan Shawcross on the break and going on a mazy run to set up Edin Dzeko, only for the Bosnian to see his shot blocked by the recovering Shawcross. We were frequently caught napping by Citeh’s quick set-piece strategy, and were nearly punished after 20 minutes when David Silva received the ball from a short corner in acres of space on the right to curl a peach of an effort that beat Sorensen all ends up and slammed into the far post. 10 minutes later, Tevez really should have opened the scoring after Gareth Barry played him in, but he could only slice his close range shot over the bar.

We lacked quality on the ball in virtually every department, and created very little – although we were the first team to put the ball in the net, Shawcross bundling one in after Huth’s shot only to be (correctly) ruled offside. Beyond that, and a decent Glenn Whelan volley that was blocked for a corner, we had very little to show for our first half efforts. Nonetheless, as the second half kicked off, we were still very much in the game.

If anything, we actually improved after the break, looking, initially at least, tighter at the back while offering more going forward. Whelan advanced on a couple of occasions but didn’t really test Pantilimon enough with a pair of less than stinging daisy cutters. Substitute Cameron Jerome entered the fray and for the first time we started to get behind the Citeh back line, and a better square ball across the box from Jerome to Jones after the ex-Birmingham man outmuscled Clichy on the Stoke right may even have seen us take the lead.

Just as it seemed as if we were finally gaining a foothold in the game, TP made a double substitution, removing Jones and Andy Wilkinson, who’d picked up a knock, and throwing on Crouch and Whitehead. The changes however only served to sap what little momentum we’d started to build, seeming to sow confusion in our rearguard effort and taking the wind out of our attacking sails. The players at first didn’t seem to know where they should be playing – we went to three at the back, then Whitehead went to right back and Ryan Shotton to left back, and towards the end we had a kind of 4-5-1 with Jerome and Walters wide and the bizarre sight of Matthew Etherington chugging around in midfield.

Mancini’s men had a couple of good chances themselves, Sorensen bravely diving to whip the ball from Barry’s toes when he seemed set to score, and substitute Aguero flashing an effort inches wide.

Still, we did recover to pose a few problems once again, with Walters and Crouch both heading over. A replay and inevitable defeat at Eastlands loomed, but with five minutes to go our reckoning was brought forward. Not for the first time in recent weeks, sloppy defending proved our downfall. After we’d carelessly given the ball away in the opposition half, the visitors poured forward and the ball was played across the box for right back Pablo Zabaleta, who had all the time and space he needed to drill the ball in. Shotton, not for the first time, had been guilty of ball watching, but nobody had tracked the Argentine’s run, which was just amateurish (at this point following the positional musical chairs I’m pretty sure it was Jon Walters’ job to do this?) and decidedly un-Stoke like, even by current standards.

The goal spurred us into life once more, as a backheader by Crouch drifted wide and Jerome blasted over from around the penalty spot when he really should have hit the target. Deep down though we all knew that it was game over after the goal, and so it proved. After four seasons of good cup runs we have been ejected from the party early, a hard-working but guileless display not really coming close to matching the expensively assembled quality of the away side.

So what now? All that remain is to knuckle down and have a really good go at finishing as high as we can in the league – ideally cracking the top 10 for the first time. You have to wonder though, given results and performances in 2013 so far, if this squad is capable of rising to that challenge.

 

2) Denied cup final revenge

One of the few good things about the cup draw was that it offered us the chance to exorcise the demons of that disappointing day in May 2011 when our great cup run finally ran out of juice at the final hurdle (and other horrendous mixed metaphors). In the event however, this defeat actually had quite a few eerie parallels with that game at Wembley; the scoreline was identical, the winning goal was similar, and the performance as a whole bore many of the same hallmarks. On Saturday, as in May 2011, TP picked pretty much his strongest available side (taking into account the issues surrounding Jermaine Pennant), and as then, that team ended up performing some way below its best.

Of course, it shouldn’t be forgotten in both cases that the opposition had quality to spare, and the team that knocked us out on Saturday was significantly superior to the one that lifted the cup two years ago, when you consider that they had almost £100m worth of talent not even in their matchday squad on the day and were able to win without hitting anything like top gear, despite losing Vincent Kompany to injury early on.

It’s difficult to read too much into cup games, but if there is cause for concern after this, it’s to do with how lifeless we were. As was the case with the Chelsea game a few weeks back, the sluggishness of Stoke’s performance was disappointing given that we’ve become accustomed to our team turning it on at home against the top sides. The last time Manchester City won at the Brit, Brian Little was our manager, so it was a shame to see that record finally tumble. We didn’t really seem up for it, didn’t play with anything like the kind of tempo we usually do in this kind of game, and offered precious little in the way of an attacking threat. It was a disjointed, subdued performance in which we were distinctly second best both on the pitch and in the stands. We certainly did not play as well as we did in September’s 1-1 home draw with the champions, in spite of the presence in that starting XI of players who don’t, in my opinion, fit our system anything like as well.

These things happen of course – we all remember that we were not ‘on it’ in the cup final either. Yet back then, we could comfort ourselves in the knowledge that two of our star men were nowhere near 100% and we’d virtually propped them up, El Cid style, and sent them into battle. This time though, the vast majority of our best players were fit and available but still we stuttered. Obviously Citeh, with their riches, have strengthened. Yet we’ve spent around £30m in that same period of time, retained all of the players who started that final, and somehow look weaker.

Though we have plenty of points on the board, it’s unclear what direction our season is heading in. Maybe we’ll have a better idea by the time the transfer window slams shut on Thursday. Which brings us to…

 

3)  Yet another plea for a left back

The dearth of genuine left backs at Stoke is hardly an original topic of discussion, and it’s one that it seems the management staff themselves are conscious of if our ill-fated pursuit of window-hating PSV star Erik Pieters is anything to go by. However, we’re now at the stage where the hole at left back represents a gaping wound. We got away with it earlier in the season and indeed racked up the clean sheets thanks in large part to our brilliant defensive unit and team ethic; now however we’re suffering from the distinct lack of equilibrium the situation has created.

As a left back, Marc Wilson is the living, breathing definition of the term ‘bog standard’, but he’s Paolo Maldini compared to the other contenders. We have an abundance of players who can at the very least ‘do a job’ at right back – Wilkinson, Shotton, Cameron, Whitehead – but shift any one of them over to the other side and they look awkward, uncomfortable, and vulnerable to players running at them. Wilkinson has been nothing short of a disaster when he’s played there this season, looking totally lost, not knowing who to mark and playing some simply awful ‘passes’ to nobody whatsoever. On Saturday Shotton was poor in both full back slots, too often ball watching and leaving enormous gaps. Whitehead and Cameron both looked primed to make a decent fist of the role at first but have since shown themselves to be very dodgy positionally and uncertain in their decision-making – as if being on their ‘wrong side’ takes them an extra 30 seconds or so to make their mind up about what to do next or else results in a panicky shank into touch or to an opponent.

The space to be found on our left has been exploited a number of times since the 3-3 draw with Southampton and it was that side from which the Man City right back was able to plunder the winner.

We need somebody with a left foot who is both comfortable defensively and can ably support Matthew Etherington, who showed with a few good runs that he can still cause teams problems when the planets align. We need a proper, honest to God, specialist left back. Not a converted centre half. Not a converted central midfielder. Not an ageing winger whose legs have gone. We’ve messed about long enough. When players as viciously average as Marcus Hall and Andy Griffin continue to haunt the number three shirt, it starts to get beyond a joke.

 

4) Michael Kightly – stick or twist?

Similarly, the addition of at least one more winger could make a real difference to the remainder of our season. I thought Etherington had one of his better games on Saturday and at least looked to run at defenders and get to the byline to get crosses in. However, while his football brain and delivery remain good, generally he’s very hit and miss, and he’s hurtling towards the end of the standard winger’s shelf-life.

Jermaine Pennant is clearly dead to Pulis at this point and therefore not a serious option, which leaves Michael Kightly the only other ‘proper’ winger on the books. Following on from an utterly abject performance in the third round replay against Crystal Palace, Kightly had another very poor game against Man City. He ran down blind alleys, overhit even the simplest of passes, failed to cover his full back and lost the ball far too easily.

It’s hard to know what to do with him from here.  For me, although this game didn’t remotely suggest it, on the whole we look a far more potent team with two out and out wingers on the pitch. Yet Kightly has been dreadful for a while now. I’m undecided as to whether or not he’s simply not up to it as this level (which seems to be the consensus view) or if he’s just devoid of confidence and in wretched form.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that Kightly started the season pretty well (despite often being stuck on the left, rather than in his preferred right-sided berth), scoring on his debut and providing a peach of a cross for Jones to score against Swindon. He was our best player in our best showing at Old Trafford in many a year, winning the free kick that produced the first goal and scoring the second himself with a fine if slightly fortuitous solo effort. Even as recently as December, he was contributing to the cause, his entrance off the bench at West Brom helping to inject a bit of life into a fairly dismal game and providing the assist for the winner. At his best, he brings some much-needed directness to our play, always eager to get behind his full back and into the box to shoot or cross.

These days though, he looks very much like a man trying too hard. Despite that Hawthorns cameo, he has never quite recovered from losing his place in the side. He was perhaps unfortunate to be dropped at the time, but since then he’s been so bad that it’s been hard to make a case for his inclusion beyond the fact that there isn’t anybody else.

Of course, the flip side to that argument is that maybe those good early showings were just a false dawn, an average player performing to his absolute best to impress his new team mates/manager/fans.

Either way, TP is now faced with a dilemma. Either he gives Kightly a run of games on that right flank to play his way back into form – or we splash out on (or loan) another wide man to play there instead. Sticking Jon Walters out there should be an absolute red-button, sound-the-sirens, head-for-the-shelters, duck-and-cover last resort.

 

5)      A slight return for the engine room

Both of our first-choice central midfielders went into this game with something to prove. Glenn Whelan had been absolutely shocking since the turn of the year, looking slow, playing us into trouble and generally becoming a bit of a liability.

Steven Nzonzi has been the undisputed darling of our season thus far, but there had been suggestions that a bit of disillusionment and disinterest had started to creep into his game after a few anonymous, less than imposing games against Palace and Swansea.

This match marked a mild comeback of sorts. Though quiet again during the first half, Nzonzi looked much more like himself after the break, helping to take the pressure off us and keeping the ball well, growing into a more meticulous, metronomic presence as the half went on and he was able to get forward more, spreading the play to our wingers and full backs to get crosses in. It was a relief to see him starting to rediscover the level of performance we’re used to from the Frenchman.

Whelan has come in for some fearful stick from some fans on the messageboard lately but walked off with the sponsors’ man of the match award. While I found that to be perhaps slightly OTT (much like his horror tackle on Javi Garcia for which he somehow evaded a red card), I did think he was one of our better players on the day. Yes, that challenge was awful and some of his decisions frustrating (wasting a free kick with a brainless cross into Pantilimon’s arms when Shotton had peeled away to the right and was in bags of space being the most head-slapping example), but he was also defensively very strong. He was always there to close out the space ahead of the visitors’ creative players and break up the play by getting a leg or knee in the way. He also showed a willingness to shoot that he seemed to have lost in recent years, and played a couple of cracking passes – the best being a great one with the outside of his boot into the channels for Shotton to latch onto in the first half, from which he received the return and had a fierce effort blocked.

Both Whelan and Nzonzi have been so good for most of this season and we need them both to get back to form, so it was encouraging to see both appear to pull out of their respective tailspins even in defeat against Man City. Here’s hoping both are selected against a there-for-the taking Wigan on Tuesday night. Three points and a healthy confidence boost are a must.