We need more height - Sandro for VdV would give us a firmer base in midfield. Adebayor is not doing well - being off-side from a clearance is criminally lazy. Friedel is showing his weaknesses today - stuck to his line for all the throws which is not helping at all. We can still get something out of this though
Personally I think Stoke should be banned from being shown on TV. They are by far the most boring team I have seen play. Long ball after long ball, long throw after long throw. It's crap.
Not sure he was at fault for the second one - he might well have not got it if he came for it. But he's certainly making it easy for Crouch - we need our GK to be challenging for crosses in the six-yard box
Keepers don't even need to win the ball in their own box, most of the time. If they challenge for it and don't win, then the ref'll normally blow for a foul, anyway.
Too many ex-Spurs players in the Stoke team with a point to prove. Etherington - no goals up till now, scores twice. Crouch - from what I've seen of him before this game he was average, today he's been pretty decent - actually winning balls in the air. Woodgate - he's actually playing and isn't injured If Palacios was playing - it'd be the full set (can't remember if any others are there atm)
It's going to be hard to get anything from this now. Nothing to lose though so we can push forward and try and get something out of it.
Oh - awesome, take Lennon off who was playing pretty well and put on Bassong - yeah that makes sense. Bassong will probably score an own goal soon.
I think we've got to write-off this game and learn what we can from it. We're not going to come up against teams like Stoke very often, so there's absolutely no need for us to change the way we play. However, we simply have to learn from the numerous defensive errors we've made today, or we won't finish in the top 4.
He's playing Bale and Walker as wing-backs, which is exactly the formation that I suggested in a recent thread! Harry has obviously been reading my posts and has finally decided to bow to my greater footballing knowledge
Might be a good thing in the long run - don't want the players to get too arrogant Aside from that, the media were getting a bit annoying - they didn't know what to make from us before this - after today we'll be a write-off again.
