All we can do is take the positives - My thoughts on the Stoke game

Well, we defended quite well, and didn't give away any ****ty goals.

We weren't as good as we have been in the final third, but we did create chances and it was only an amazing display by butland that stopped us from winning.

Unlucky, but we simply move on to the next game.

Ratings -

Elliot - 7 - Some good commanding of the pen area, and a great save to deny Walters.

Janmaat - 6.5 - Reasonably solid, not much going forward though.

Mbemba - 8 - Solid defensively, and some great attacking play. He should have gotten Arnoutovic sent off.

Colo - 6.5 - Solid enough. Not doing his job as captain at times though.

Dummett - 5 - Caught out a few times. One decent cross into the box isn't enough to justify him starting over haidara.

Sissoko - 7.5 - Some good runs and great shots on goal. Worked quite hard.

Tiote - 7 - Some sloppy play on the ball at times, but I thought he was canny today. Dispossessed players well and kept his head for the most part.

Anita - 7 - Some very important defending at times from the lad. Good show.

Wijnaldum - 7.5 - Some superb work on the ball and good work rate.

Mitrovic - 7.5 - Unlucky not to have score, gave the Stoke defence a lot of hassle. Lost his self control a bit though.

Perez - 7 - Great skill and work in the first half. Was a bit quiet in the 2nd. Lots of crap corners.

De Jong - 2 - Didn't even notice he was playing. Contributed **** all. But I suppose he wasn't give a lot of service.

Lascelles - 5 - Some good work, and unlucky not to have scored. Not the most tidy footballer, but very powerful looking.

McClaren - 6 - Set up the team as expected. **** subs and sub timings. Should have made a change earlier IMO.

MOTM- Mbemba. Class act. Can't wait til we partner him up with a decent CB.

 

What a dirty thuggish team Stoke are.
Nowt has changed.

Back onto us.

We had some great chances.
We've been crying out for chances for ages and it's good to see we are now creating them.

Highlight of the day was meeting up with Nev for a beer.

What a lovely chap he is offline as well as online.

Sorry about ACTUALLY wearIng the chinos mate. Pop some sunglasses on next time

 

Problem is Tash, we lose with Haidara because he can't defend, we don't create anything left with Dummett because he can't attack. The solution is pretty obvious...

Overall we were good but our final ball is still not there all the time.

Really though Butland was just fantastic.

 

You have played 10 premier league games and only scored in 4 of them. Take out the Norwich game and you have only scored 4 goals in your other 9 games.

It seems the oppositions keeper has yet again played a blinder and not your forwards to blame for not beating the keeper...

There is your problem.

 

Good to meet up and finally put a face to the name mate

Worst part of the day for me though was walking into the bar and looking for the 'bloke in the mustard chinos' only to find two different guys, in different groups, both wearing the same coloured chinos. Picked the one who looked like the biggest trouble-maker and guessed right!

 

Class always stands out mate! Lol.

 

I live in Consett mate.
It's par for the course!

 

I thought the performance was decent and Butland played a blinder. That said, we can't afford to keep coming away from games with excuses and need to start putting some wins on the board. Turning chances into goals is a big problem at the minute. I still have faith that we'll get there, but we need to start doing it soon.

I thought the defence was excellent today at defending. Seems harsh to me to single out Dummett for his poor use of the ball when the same could be said of the others too, particularly Colo. Dummett is turning into an excellent defender but struggles bringing the ball out. He made quite a few first class tackles today and dealt excellently with their attack when they were breaking out. Part of the problem he had today was that he was left very isolated when he had the ball and quite a few times was left with no easy options to pick out. I also noticed that, particularly in the first half, he got himself into some great positions going forward but kept being ignored with the play switched back to Janmaat. Janmaat benefits from Sissoko quite often being very close to him. On the other wing nobody really did the same for Dummett.

Another problem we had is the breakdown in both Anita and Tiote linking up with those further forward. I thought both played well in the defensive midfield role. Tiote looked a lot better than the last two games and won the ball well without the stupid tackles. I lost count of how many times Anita nipped breakaways in the bud by winning the second ball when we gave the ball away. Looking at that back six you can see why we struggle to open teams up when it isn't a fast counter attack.

Up front we should have scored. But for some great saves by Butland we would have done. However, we need to be good enough to put at least one chance away even when the goalie is having a blinder.

 

Yep mixture of the two. You'd have to a moron to not acknowledge Butland, it was a terrific show. We do need to be more clinical. The positive is we have been very good of late. We dominated Chelsea for 60mins, Man City for 45mins, mackems, Stoke - we just have to find the killer instinct. Like you say even when a keeper plays like that you have to find a way.

 

Sat in a different part of the ground today I picked up on a couple of different things.
1- Sissoko- he seemed to just completely switch off at times and let Janmaat do all the running.
2- Mitro- At times he spent too much time moaning at the ref and because of this we missed chances as he was 'preoccupied'.
3- Sissy- .... as he will now be known... when warming up... still kept the snood stuck to his face... as I'm sat there like a proper man in my Toon top.

 

Mitrovic was working his ticket again today. Pretending to be hit in the face and rolling on the floor was shocking and I'm sure I saw him handle the ball deliberately when it came through to him in front of goal in the second half. Many other 'falls' and whinging sessions from him. He is basically a dirty cheat and I was surprised he managed to stay on the pitch tbh. Mind you, that Arnautovic should have been sent off. If not for the blatant 2nd yellow in the last 10 mins, then for taking about 3 minutes to walk of the pitch when he was subbed. That was a ****ing disgrace which the referee was all too happy to allow.

 

IM A MAN!

 

Sod Chinos. I'm still in shorts.

 

This is rediculous. We need to actually win a football match. Norwich just handed it to us as far as I'm concerned. We need to find a way to dig the 3 points out.

 

Typical game against a typical Stoke.