Takes a solid team to have 34% of the possession and come away with anything, let alone 3 points! Well done Stoke. I only hope we can emulate half of your success as you are a team I really admire, like Pulis too. It's a club that is run perfectly IMO. Slightly disappointed to see Walters going down so easily again though.
34% really? Wow.. I didn't know the exact possession stats but that's something, something we can be proud of too.
To the Liverpool fans on here who have been gracious in defeat, i thank you. To those who have not( especially those on other Liverpool forums ), you lost a football match, grow up get over it & move on. When fans start moaning about the length of grass, pitch size, ref's decisions etc, etc, but glaringy fail to witness why your team did not win i.e. You could not put the ball in our net You could not break us down Your passing & distribution from the back was awful etc OK you had 70-75% of possession, but what did you do with it? Football is not all about attacking & scoring goals, there is also an art called DEFENDING. Tony Pulis got his tactics spot on, get a goal, then DEFEND for your lives, YES it's not pretty, but that is what Stoke are all about especially against the top 6 teams ( any points gained off the top 6 is a bonus ). Liverpool basically were invited onto Stoke, for the rest of the match( hence the possession stats ), but as an art of wonderful DEFENDING & clueless liverpool finishing we won the game. IF YOU DO NOT CONCEDE YOU DO NOT LOSE
my post was more to do with defending, which i beleive we are definately up there with the best in the league
Mighty Huth Well said... we scored and Liverpool didn't. I wasn't at the game yesterday so until I see anything of the game i.e. MOTD 2 I won't comment on Walters erm, going down easily? A certain Stevie Gerrard does it better than most... Had a call from a good mate who was there yesterday. Simple answer is exactly that simple... we can NOT outfootball teams like Liverpool. Good luck for the season.
Thanks, I think you can understand some of fans' frustration, but in all fairness they have constantly pointed out credit where its due and taken nothing away from Stoke's victory. Like I said before, congratulations and good luck on Thursday
I certainly can agree with your frustrations, yes you dominated, but as soon as we went 1-0 up, defend was all we were going to do. Normally on MOTD your legend Mr Hansen, allways points out great defending, this time he did not, was that because we were playing a certain team he used to play for? Defending is a forgotten art, but we are bloody brilliant at it.
I remember last season a team (can,t remember who) put advertising boarding up 1metre from the pitch to stop de laps throw ins.
I'm quite sure if you asked Stoke fans, the majority will say that Pennant and Etherington are much more dangerous these days than Delap.
Defending is a fine art..except when you do with with 10 players camped in your own 18 yard box for 87 minutes. Even Rangers don't do that when they are playing a team above the standard of St Johnstone.
Jobdone a few sides have done it now, but 2 that spring to mind were Westham and Burnley. Guys I have loads of time for Liverpool fans and as 2 clubs we have always got along so let's put this to bed now and both agree to disagree that the ref was poor, Stoke defended excellently and Liverpool struggled to break down a very stubborn defence! I'm sure with the squad both our sides have at the moment we are going to be in the top half of the table the end of this season with Liverpool probably a little higher than us!
Remember that Burnley game. It was, ironically enough, one of the few times we scored from throws that season.
Some pics from yesterday's game - http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150800193975355.739214.252409645354
