Stoke City: The Weekend That Wasn’t
By Garry Welsh
"STOKE ON TRENT, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 24: Xherdan Shaqiri of Stoke City appeals during the Barclays Premier League match between Stoke City and Watford on October 24, 2015 in Stoke on Trent, England. (Photo by Chris Brunskill/Getty Images)"
The weekend that wasn’t any good. 2 games, 2 loses, Euro dream is all but over and WBA sit 6 points above Stoke City. The Euro bit isn’t the hard bit as it’s not expected. It’s the baggies sitting 8 points ahead. Not only did they offload Saido Berahino for 10 million (Henry Kissinger must have been their lead negotiator), they are sat looking down from their ivory tower.
Leicester City
We saw most of the ball, edging out Leicester with 52% possession. I hear it a lot that it doesn’t matter how much possession you have, it’s what you do with it and quite frankly it is probably the truest statement in the game.
With the extra 4% of the ball we had 10 shots. Fairly good? Not really, not when only 2 of them were on target. Especially not when Leicester had 10 shots on target. Yes 10! 10 shots on target from 23.
In all honesty the less said about this game the better. Mark Hughes did acknowledge the fact we were rubbish.
"“We didn’t perform. What you don’t want to happen is to go behind against Leicester. It becomes more of a basketball game, end to end, and we ended up chasing the game.“Whatever we said at half-time didn’t work because straight away we conceded the second. From that moment it was difficult to see a way back for us.“We never produced the quality that was required. It was not a great day for us and we didn’t make it hard enough for Leicester. We’ve got a difficult fixture against Burnley and we will have to be better than we were today.”"
Cheers Captain Obvious.
Burnley
Burnley beat Leicester at the end of January and were in 9th place. They haven’t won since then and look to be on the decline. With all but 3 of Burnley’s points coming from Turf Moor and the fact that we are unsure of where the goal is, it was always going to be tough.
Once again we had 52% possession. This time we had 15 shots but yet again only 2 on target. I am beginning to think that Mark Hughes should ask Jason Lee out of retirement (ask your dad who he is). Not only did George Boyd end his 16 game goal drought he covered the most ground on the night (12.45Km). Oh yeah and he picked up man of the match. I reckon you could of got him for 10 mil Mark.
Thing to look at
1. Shooting practice
2. Practice shooting
3. Practice putting the ball between the white things.
4. Stop fouling so much (27 in 2 games)
5. Apply to FIFA for the goals to be made bigger.