Lots of negative comments regarding Stoke and i dont see why TBH, we got roughed up and lacked desire and Heart for a battle, apart from Ash,Taylor and Joe allen the rest of our team thought they were above mixing it with the opposition. I didnt expect us to win here today and i think most Jacks thought the same, its always difficult to watch our players getting bullied but that is very often the basics of football at many levels and part and parcel of the game, we have been found wanting against such teams this season and i think its partly down to the fact the players are starting to beleive they are better than they actually are. I am not too upset about the result,it was Stoke away where they tend to boss teams that like to play football, my worry is that our players seem to be all icing and no cake lately! they flatter to deceive far too often of late, early/mid season there was an edge to our play that was driven by fear of failure and humiliation, that seems to have been replaced by a laziness to win the battles before playing the football, the willingness to run and work harder than the oppostion was a corner stone of our play,im not seeing this of late,im seeing us try to play the pretty patterns without the same work ethic. Stoke were not overly dirty,no more so than Norwich and many others, what i thought was going to happen happened,we got bullied by the stoke lads and didnt fancy a day battling in the trenches, only exceptions for me were Ash williams,Joe Allen and Neil Taylor. I hope that the players will refocus and remember that they are nowhere near safe in this league, there are many hard games ahead and i hope the boys will rediscover their hardworking ethos that made them comfortable in this league up until a few weeks ago. A few points on our goalkeeper. He is crap !!(just one actually!) get rid in the summer please he offers nothing whatsoever. Brenden Rodgers is starting to annoy me RE Scott Sinclair, he missed yet another sitter failed to square the ball properly and was invisible for large parts of the game,please give Routledge a start,at least Wayne has a great first touch ! scott has done brilliant for us but i feel he thinks he is undropable regardless of how he plays,thats not fair on Wayne Routledge who has done pretty much nothing wrong when played wide. Substitutions were a bit iffy for me and also late,it was clear we needed change earlier, i know buck has little option on the bench but i would have brought on Wayne for sinclair and Moore in the hole for Gylfi,who had his poorest game for us. Maybe taking Dyer off was to give him rest but on the other hand he just had a week of Holidays so not sure what the thinking was there!! All in all, not a great game but we move on, it was what we were expecting,a shame the players were pretty much of the same opinion as us!!
Norway you took the words right out of my mouth, I'm in full agreement with your post 100%, well said mate, top post indeed, I've nothing to add!............. Yes I have, Josh Mac! Not impressed again......................
Great post Norway. I was very nervous about this game,and expressed the feeling several days ago,that it simply wasn't winnable. There appears to be something wrong somewhere,and I'm not sure that Brendan knows what to do about it. Another couple of defeats in the upcoming games will put the cat amonsgt the pigeons. Luckily,there is a clutch of teams below us who are in deeper trouble.
Josh mac is a boy playing in a mans league im afraid to say, ive said it before and will say it again, if he is the next big thing(and might i add Jorden henderson) then Joe Allen must be 10ft tall!! I dont doubt the boys talent but he is not good enough to get into our midfield, he may be ok at chelsea where he will be surounded by world class but here is at the same level as Jazz richards and Lee Lucas, he doesnt like to put his foot in where it hurts and i tend to think that maybe spade work is beneath him, it sounds harsh and i may well be wrong about him but so far he is no great shakes!
Can't disagree with what you have said there Norway. The players we have on the bench/reserves are just as good as this Josh kid. Give Lucas a game I say.
Vetch- I think Brenden is struggling with his options when things dont go well, not really his fault as our budget is limited at best but in fairness to him he cant do much about players shying away from a battle, maybe the players had this game written off before hand i dont know, Tremmel was a disaster in goal today and maybe it unnerved the defence as a result. My concern is that things will get very sticky in the coming weeks and unless we are prepared to sweat blood and get our hands dirty we will come up short,all the good work will be undone and playing our game in a relegation scrap will not be for the faint hearted, most of us guessed we would get the odd thumping but that hasnt really happened by being out classed its happened by being out battled which to me is not acceptable! The Norwich game should have been the Gypsies warning ,looks like the Stoke game is the Gypsies warning and late wake up call rolloed into one!! we have to fight to earn the right to play and we seem to forget that these last few games.
Surprised at your comments about not see it is a winnable game today, on the forum prediction league I'm in more people had you guys to win than lose today. Still you guys are doing well and deserve to finish in mid table this year. Keep up the good work (just as long as it isn't against Newcastle).
cbra- I dont think many of us thought we would go to stoke and get a win, maybe a draw was to be expected, but nothing more. If anything these types of games are harder for us than the games against the top 6 !! that sounds a bit weird but i think its true especially if you judge our performances against Liverpool,spurs,arsenal and chelsea compared to Norwich,Blackburn,Wolves,stoke and sunderland. Strange but true !!
It's all very well saying our lads didn't fancy a day battling in the trenches but when the enemy are foot taller and several stone heavier then they don't stand much of a chance to begin with. Only Williams, Caulker and Graham have the physical presence to look after themselves. I agree with you that Stoke weren't dirty - they jostled and harried a bit like Norwich did. Tremmel didn't cover himself with glory - perhaps he should invest in a cap to keep the sun out of his eyes? At the start of the season this was one of our hardest games on paper - and so it proved to be.
Quite simply beat the teams around ya .. But as for the bollox us being thugs is lame ! U passed yourselves to death today without an end product thats a dangerous thing to do ! We take the 3 pts and move on no more .. its was prob 1 of our easier games at home this season ! U guys will be fine unless u start losin at home !!! good luck
aswan- never stopped the likes of dennis wise, roy keane,kwame ampadu and even Joe allen from mixing it when required.There are loads of others i can mention also like paul scoles for example. Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the fight in the dog. from local league to premier league you earn the right to play by not being bullied early doors. You dont have to beat these guys up just let them know you are not going to be pushed around, joe allen is one of our smallest players yet he isnt afraid of standing up for himself against bigger players.In fairness Neil Taylor is the same, he doesnt mind going in for a tackle and letting the opposition know he is there, im not saying we should be like the crazy gang just sometimes have a bit of bottle and let the other team know your there, the ref will then look after the afters!!
potter- Ive not said you were thugs, i got no problem with the game today, you were no more physical than the likes of Norwich and played within the rules fair and square, some of our lot want to try and make out you were dirty when it wasnt really the case at all, the inability for our boys to not mix it was a far bigger problem,watching scott sinclair run around jumping through the air like bambi trying to avoid contact meant he wasnt thinking about beating his man with the ball, the defender did his job perfectly, he put sinclair off his game and did it within the rules too.
Taylor's got a bit of edge to his game, admittedly. Sinclair and McEachran aren't tacklers. Dyer, Allen & Britton will never be a Dennis Wise. We don't have the squad to deal with the likes of Stoke. How did we manage to beat them at the Liberty?
Because we were prepared to work harder than them and wernt jumping out of challenges,even though Dyer was getting cut in 2 he was prepared to come back for more,thus showing he wasnt going to be put off his game,he was prepared to battle it out and not be intimidated, there isnt enough of that attitude being shown at the moment. You seem to be missing the point here, these players dont need to be dennis wise they need to show they are prepared to battle and not bottle, something that our players have never been frightened of in the past in L1 and CCC where there were plenty of kicking teams. There seems to be a mind set that their football alone will win the day,it wont,they need to harness their work rate battling qualities and passing skills to compete,they arnt good enough to just try and pass their way through a game against teams like Stoke. The fact that we beat them once proves to me that we have dropped off in terms of working hard to compete. As i said i didnt expect 3pts here but the same thing was noticable against Norwich .
It's called a beautiful game for a reason & at a certain point it just ain't beautiful anymore . There will always be teams like Stoke that live on the outer edges of questionable play based on referee decision making , pressing to see what they can get away with physically & that's how they get most of there points . A lot of talented teams end up going through the motions of a game while looking over there shoulder , ready to almost give up the points & move on to the next game . Lets move on hoping the next game will be more in line with " Good " play
Norway Jack BRILLIANT post may I say That is coming from a Stoke fan... I think the other Stoke poster is quite right. YOU passed us to death but with no end product! If you take all the top teams every one has player's who will "put their foot in" mix it up if you like. I'm sure Swansea will not get dragged into a relegation battle simply because you are too good football wise for a lot of prem teams.. I do think one fault from today's game I noticed was this.. WHY you try and pass it around in our area seem's strange? Sort out your'e defence with more height and you will be fine.. Good luck for the rest of the season but, I don't think you will need luck.. keep doing what you were doing it's only one loss plus last weeks game v Norwich! Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs (we got lucky that game) but we matched all the other's at home. Even outplayed Chelsea and Utd for parts of the games too. When we play teams around us we struggle.. funny ole game as Greavsie once said.. All the best for the rest.
Norway - great post. I echo your coments on Sinclair. The opportunity he missed in the second minute could have set a whole different tone on the game. All he had to do was hit the target, make the the keeper make the save, and there was a total absence of technique and focus to finish. In hind sight quite unforgivable, and some people have actually touted him as a call up for England .... Fantasy. Routledge has to be given a chance. As for Josh and Moore ... There was a pickup in our game when they came butwe lost all width in the process and our two full backs lost all ability to cross the ball which aggravated the situation. Josh has not impressed me yet and quite frankly we can't afford to act as an incubator for other clubs. If the players they lone out don't have the ability to make our first team on merit and make an impact we do ourselves a disservice by taking them as they take the place of one of our own assets that could be benefitting from the sub playing time . Today, Augustien should have been on the bench - horses for courses at the very least. As for the keeper, he is not too bad / that bad, but Vorm he's not and we have been spoilt in that position. Vorm might have saved those goals today.
Clubs have gone to school on us. Norwich now Stoke have found a way to stop us fom playing to our strengths while being able to apply theirs and score enough goals to win. It's going to get tough, very tough from here on out. It's going to be one battle after another.
Maybe it was a little harsh to call Stoke "thugs", although those were'nt my words. But, I think our players were scared because of the reputation of some of the Stoke players. They are known for going in hard, and with a fellow Welshman having had his leg broken by a Stoke player, maybe this was in the back of their minds? But, you thoroughly deserved your win. You pressed our players as soon as one of our players touched the ball, which I stated Pulis would do before the match, and you scored two Stoke classics. Plus, with our first choice keeper out and Donkey from Shrek playing, it was only ever going to go one way.
