Stoke City Post Match Thoughts

[CAMiller]

As Yazz and the Plastic Population said "The Only Way Is Up" but unfortunately due to QPR's abject display at Watford that's not quite true. Every season we seem to have at least one match where we combine an abject performance with injuries, bookings, one or two sending offs and a clown of a referee. Let's hope that we've got that game out of the way early this season and today is not simply an example of what's to come.

Thoughts on today's game?

[pip_y]

Good to see JJ back on the pitch, not much else to say.

[MillersTime]

First and foremost, it is the first game of the season so this result doesn't define what our season will be. We must learn from today however, it seems as though MT did at HT (assuming Morrison was taken off for tactical reasons, which seems right given the change of shape. Could of brought on McCart otherwise or played Peltier at C.

3 centre backs and wing backs doesn't suit us, for the reasons I mentioned in the match thread. Don't be too harsh on the wing backs (Bramall was poor however, granted). They were asked to do far too much. Fred looks immeasurably more comfortable playing further up the pitch, we must utilise that. Hopefully with the addition of Green we can get some balance on the left also. 4-3-3 is the way, IMO. Otherwise we will continue to be destroyed when we lose the ball and it is knocked down the wings whilst our wing backs are up the pitch. Losing a CB will help make us more defensively sound, as counter intuitive as that sounds.

Real time and replays made it difficult to see what happened with the first goal. Seems like they overloaded one side, we got dragged over and they exploited the gap. Good finish but the space of the 365 for the scorer. Second goal riled me no end. We didn't even compete for the initial header. Unforgivable. Communicate lads. We, with our size in the team, cannot lose those battles. And then we weren't awake to remotely compete for where the ball fell. Terrible goal. Absolutely terrible. The rest I can't be bothered with in terms of goals, meh. By the by.

Cafu red, marvellous. Tops off the afternoon. Looked really harsh but did he do the old 'scissor' action in the tackle? The one they want to clamp down on. Couldn't see conclusively, at this moment it looks a really poor decision.

Thinking forward and improving is all we can do now. Go to a flat 4, get players in positions where they can be dangerous and work damn hard for attacking reinforcements. We don't need Smith or Sharp. We need a capable striker with pace. JJ isn't that guy.

[Adventus2012]

It looks like its going to be a long old slog and the ref was a to55er today.

[mellowmiller]

Too early to get too pessimistic but some worrying signs in that game.
Can we please go to a back four and bring some stability to the defence. We did that last season and our performances improved.

[wrinkly]

Reminded me of when we played Brentford, first game, a few seasons ago.
Everybody buzzing and hoping for a cup tie type performance, Instead we got a white flag show.
defence was especially disappointing.
As Cam says - please don't let this be a typical performance this season.
Injuries already biting.

[audimiller]

Poor officials, poor defending, need to appeal cafus sending off I think as he got the ball, 3 points next Saturday 👍

[BramleyMiller58]

Poor officials, poor defending, need to appeal cafus sending off I think as he got the ball, 3 points next Saturday ��

Not a straight red so can't be appealed (I think).

[pip_y]

I thought you could only appeal a red, not 2 yellows

[Walt]

As Yazz and the Plastic Population said "The Only Way Is Up" but unfortunately due to QPR's abject display at Watford that's not quite true. Every season we seem to have at least one match where we combine an abject performance with injuries, bookings, one or two sending offs and a clown of a referee. Let's hope that we've got that game out of the way early this season and today is not simply an example of what's to come.

Thoughts on today's game?

No surprise that I'm putting this one down to MT
Viking was good as always - one super stop
Back 3 weren't great but tried to stand up to the test

Midfield was just a mess
Too many out there didn't seem to understand their roles - Fred & Haks were as if they'd never met before & as if nobody had told them what position they were supposed to play - individually, they looked OK but they looked like they were marking each other & neither bothered to try to pick up any Stoke player - who was meant to be picking up Hoever for the first goal? Wiles was stood around hands on hips - his first 3 contributions were to give the ball away twice and then make a real mess of the first decent chance - he clearly can't play the role that he thought he was trying to play today but TBH, I'm not sure what Wiles' role should be - he has half a dozen decent games a year where he does something worldclass but too often gets the basic wrong - if we can get any bid at all, I'd take it
Cafu looked OK - one of the better things to come out of today - we despertaley need Jamie back
I thought that Bramall was decent apart from the silly booking
Hugill was a complete waste of space (as so often) - but at least Kelly looked really bright when he came on and it was good to have JJ back

But we could lose all 5 opening games (and more) if we don't play a system that the players can play

Alex Neil has built a Stoke team in his own image (he's always been a total tw@t) - I really hope some old-fashioned defender sprts out Vidigal - he was the worst

Ref was as poor as we were...