Lennon giving the ball away with a poor first touch, despite being in an acre of space and having plenty of options. He's not had a good half, by any measure.
Shelvey's goal for Swansea is supposed to be another Beckham-esque chip from the halfway line. Surpasses Rooney's, allegedly. One to watch out for.
Lennon screws it up on the break again and Naughton's forced to take one for the team. Goes in the book for a professional foul on Muniesa.
Lennon has worked hard as ever but poor touches and indecision on the break is probably costing us chances. Townsend would be nice, as long as he can replicate the work rate.
Shawcross joins Naughton with a similarly cynical foul to stop Eriksen, after a lovely little flick from the Dane.
Lennon puts Kane in, but a late, wild challenge scares him into taking a touch and he wastes it. The the little winger takes another really poor touch when it comes back in and the opportunity has gone. Really open game, but lacking in quality. HT.
Tight game but we could've even been 3 up had Adebayor not inexplicably left Rose's cross and if Kane did better with his chance. Lovely quality from Ade for the one that did go in though and Rose finished it well too. We're not breaking up Stoke's attacks as our midfield doesn't have a player who can tackle and rush players. If only we had a Sandro-type player on the bench who could come on...
Some positives and negatives from the half. Our defending, whilst still a bit sketchy at times, hasn't looked as bad overall. Adebayor is looking very good when he gets the ball at his feet and Kane is looking lively, getting into some good positions to receive the ball. He and Eriksen seem to be developing a fairly good understanding of one another. Paulinho and Lennon have been ****e. The former has offered very little and doesn't appear to be able to produce anything more than a 5 yard pass to someone who's on the verge of being closed down. - Anything inventive he's tried hasn't worked either. The latter has had a nightmare with his final ball and has caused a lot of our attacking play to break down due to simple mistakes. If it continues, we should consider getting Sandro and Townsend on after 10-15 mins.
Lovely reverse pass by Kane to put Eriksen through on goal, but he shot when he probably should've put Adebayor through, for me. He wasn't in a bad position to hit it, admittedly. Nice to see Kane closing down Begovic.
Paulinho tries to outdo Lennon with a really bad touch. Shawcross makes a really dumb decision and he's off. Hughes was pissed as it was, for no real reason, so he'll be furious now. Hope the ref doesn't try to even it up. Naughton's on a yellow and Arnautovic is tricky.
And paulinho nearly causing stoke a break through on goal, had it not been for kaboul's pace. Get the pair of them off. And stoke down to 10! Yay!
Stoke's fans rise to Mark Hughes' bait and start screaming at the ref, when they're not relentlessly booing our ever touch. They really don't have anything to moan about. Our fans decide to try and outsing them with a round of Oh When The Spurs. Good. Ireland off, Pieters on. Back four restored.
