Good game and we played really well. Dan was on fire and he roasted the Stoke defence which has been pretty watertight in recent games. Safe to say we could have doubled our tally with better finishing. We also seemed to struggle a bit to break them down and I think we missed Celina our main creator. The first half display was awesome though and I was pretty pissed off when Stoke scored with the last kick of the half. We shouldn't have allowed the shot and Nordy had plenty of time to see it.
Couple of things to gripe about. When Stoke were down to 9 men and won a corner, we placed our ENTIRE TEAM in and around our box. Wtf was that all about?! If we had left Dan or Dyer or even both near the halfway line, Stoke would have had to remove 2/3/4 players to mark them given their pace. As it was they put everyone forward to pressure us and they are good at set pieces given their size as a team. It's not as if Nathan or Dan are going to outjump the likes of Sam Vokes is it? NOT impressed with that particular tactic whoever decided it.
Second thing - when they were down to 9 men they had a rare attack and Ashley Williams had half the width of the pitch in our half on our left flank to move into. Why was this? We had a two man advantage and none of their players should have been given that sort of space to run into. We were lucky it was Ash. A forward could have used that space to damage us and it was an appalling lapse to be honest. The sort of mistake that has already cost us goals and points this season when we have been on top. But despite this, it was a grand all round performance and the lads did us proud.
Will just finish by saying it was a pleasure to watch the game with
@The Blobster courtsey of
@Borini and great to do a spot of catchup with
@Yankee_Jack again before the game and thanks as well for the coffee.
Don't forget, Yankee, you are
always welcome to stay at modest mine whenever you come over. Just phone or email me to let me know in advance. Now for some stats: (not as definitive as those from CJ)
POSSESSION: 73-27 SHOTS: 31-2 OT: 8-1 CORNERS: 6-1 FOULS: 5-17 GOALS: 3-1