Missed opportunity. Yes Stoke are a good side but we've got to beat teams like Stoke at home if we've got aspirations above mid table mediocrity. Didn't follow the game so can't comment on the performance but a very poor result.
You're right of course. I was thinking the Liverpool game was this Wednesday! One thing I'd be interested to hear is how many times does Victor get penalised for fouls, which on a second look are just good tackles? I counted at least 3 today, so in a way I suppose he was lucky not to get a yellow. Happens almost every game though.
No positives to take from that game. Again we come back from an international break and we fail to perform over the 90 minutes. I am trying to recollect a more obvious penalty with a referee perfectly positioned to see it. Mr Mason will be cooling his heals for a couple of weeks as a 4th official or linesman, but given how poor we were l wonder if we would have scored if he had awarded it. All very depressing today. We move on to the next game... BTW Pelle; complete plonker!!
So bang on pen missed. But damn do we need more attacking players. We now only have Tadic, Mane, Pelle, Long, we need at least two more wide players. We need to be able to change it up if it isn't working and we simply can't atm.
Just got back. Not such a bad performance really. Got off to the worst possible start and it was all uphill after that, but I quite enjoyed the game. Thought we did enough in the 2nd half, and the last 10 minutes of the 1st half, to merit at least a point but it wasn't to be. Quite admire Stokes brand of in your face anti football. They do everything to stop you playing, but we still managed to look pretty threatening at times. The final defence splitting pass just wasn't there today.
Very poor today. Thought we took our two best players off also - Davis and Clasie. Tadic and Long had off days so surprised both lasted the 90. Anyway, we have City next week - easy three points judging by their display.
Game I wemy to today we wouldn't have scored if Stoke had left early. I hate losing to Stoke, but they deserved the win today by a country mile. I wish Liverpool would stop annoying City. We'll suffer!
We will have something to take away from today - the new record for 'the world's most blatant penalty not to be given'. We should feel proud to have that under our belt.
Surely you mean the first half? From 50 minutes onwards I thought we were the better side (although Stoke were constantly a threat on the counter) but lacked any sort of cutting edge in the final third and weren't helped by the referee. But for the first 50 minutes, we might as well have just stayed at home. Stoke should have put the game to bed long before we finally woke up. Over the full 90 Stoke deserved their win, penalty or no penalty. The sooner we remember that football matches last 90 minutes, the better. I feel sorry for Clasie and Wanyama. The latter, because Victor did not deserve to lose that game. The former, because I have no idea what he was subbed when he was. I'd have taken Long or Davis off for Mane. I'm usually pretty on the mark with guessing who will be subbed off, but on this occasion it never once occurred to me that it might be Clasie.
All the substitutions were an attempt to give us more attacking options. Had no complaints with any of them really. Clasie wasn't offering much at the time he was taken off.
I wanted to come on here and say what a useless, inept and incompetent referee we had today but then I thought I didn't want to imply he was better than he was.
I understood why Clasie came off. I thought that Long was ineffective, so I suppose on merit Mane for Long would have been the move. But Mane for Clasie added another attacker/goal scorer and we were 1 down. Clasie had a decent game and really didn't do anything wrong, but he was not at the level where I would have deemed him indispensable. I thought Davis was rather quiet today. Not awful, but the worst of the midfield three. I think I would have made the JWP switch earlier. I don't know why but especially in the first half Stoke were being given acres of space down our right. Wanyama ended up having to cover and did a good job, but that is how Stoke scored.
