Stoke City Post Match Thoughts

[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...