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From My Seat: Stoke City (A)

Stoke City 1 - 1 Everton

On a dark dank windy day, a full complement of the faithful assembled at the Britannia. Stoke away is never going to be a classic and this game was anything but a classic. I would go as far to say that this was our worst showing of the season so far.

The first half I thought we were marginally the better team; what few chances were created, two of the best fell to us. No Mirallas was a blow and the news that he will be out for weeks is worrying.

The first half started and it took 10 mins for our first bit of joined-up stuff to feature and it almost brought a reward. Pienaar, Osman, Gibson, Coleman and then Gibson again to cross saw Jelavic just fail to make the contact that would have spelt goal. Pienaar had a shot blocked. We had a spell where we seemed in control but this lasted only to the 20-min mark but then reverted to ‘hard to watch.’ Pienaar got robbed near mid way and Jones was put in but he hit his shot high and over.

Back to the scrappy stuff and Stoke were better at scrappy than us. I was crying out for someone to put their foot on the ball and look after it for a while. Stoke attacked down their left for some minutes and we saw some good if desperate at times defending from Coleman.

The game was all over the place now as the wind blew and both teams opted for aerial balls which were handled better by the wind than the players. This approach almost paid off for Stoke when they got forward and N'Zonzi only managed to head straight at Howard — he should have scored.

Naismith then had a goalbound shot cleared from close range for a corner. Then, just 10 mins to the break, Gibson linked up with Pienaar and got the South African down the line and he put in a great cross that was nodded home. Sure looked like an OG by the lack of celebration but the ground announcer gave it to Pienaar — ‘Never!’

We were though 1 - 0 up and something to hang on to. Keep a clean sheet to the break, I thought, but we did better... or nearly did better, when some good intelligent play saw Pienaar and Baines link and Baines got his head up and fed Osman. All he had to do was hit the target. He didn’t and the ball went wide. What a miss and boy how we could have done with that.

Half-time and the chat among the milling concourse half-timers was that Stoke would bombard us and we needed not to go too deep and as we would have the strong wind behind us, not to over hit passes forward but rather get a foot on the ball and a measured build-up. The half started and what did we do? You got it — the exact opposite and within minutes there was an almighty scramble in our box that somehow did not result in a goal and was only ended when Naismith cleared only to Huth who fired over.

That was a hell of a warning but sadly not heeded and, less than 10 mins in, it happened. Direct play saw a ball delivered into the box and someone headed toward goal with no real power, what happened next is hard to describe as Howard seemed to go all flappy and slippy and just let the ball enter the net without any sort of even token resistance. Another Howard howler and on the day he was making his 200th consecutive league appearance for the club. I guess a very good keeper with an almighty rick in him from time to time. Stoke were buoyed by his generosity and came stronger again while we were, not to put to finer point on it, awful.

When we got set pieces we had the usual wrestling in the box which the ref spent quite a bit of time sorting out until he got fed up with it and just let it go on. From one of our set pieces, Shawcross left on the ground as play went on and in most Blue eyes he got what he deserved as he was a major culprit for holding and jostling players; it later emerged that Fellaini head butted him.

Now if that is the case then Fellaini deserves all he gets as he will have let down the club, his team mates, fans, and himself — for someone who professes to want CL footy with Everton, he has at a stroke left us without him for a few games in a busy period. Thanks a bunch. I know Shawcross is widely regarded as a ‘Yard Dog’ throughout the Prem but to stoop to butting is making yourself look even worse than the league’s biggest culprit.

The ref was enraging both players and fans of both teams as he made some bizarre calls. Shawcross and Jelavic clashed, the ref gave nothing; from my seat, it could have been Jelavic off. It will be very interesting to know if the ref did in fact see all the incidents and take no action but rather put them down as 50/50. If not, how the hell could anyone miss all of them.

70 mins and Barkley replaced Naismith; the youngster looked confident and kept his game neat and tidy and took part in a bit of joined-up stuff as we started to look the likelier as the clock ticked down. Stoke threw on Jerome and Crouch as they sensed they may nick it and Jerome did bring a fine save from Howard and Distin headed clear The chance was created by Gibson of all people giving the ball away, it was certainly not one of his better games.

Pienaar fouled near the edge and Gibson took whilst more wrestling was taking place and his kick was turned for a corner which he took after the ref had sorted out more wrestling and punching before it could be taken but it came to nought. Then Fellaini woke up and with some sublime stuff fed Coleman who blotted his copy book, after a not bad game, by making a hash of an attempted cross.

Then, right at the death, Pienaar was fed in and he ran unchallenged into the box, one-on-one... his goal attempt can be most kindly described as ‘crap’.

The worst game I have watched so far; after the goings-on at set pieces, how someone was not sent off or a penalty given (either way), I will never know. I am all in favour of "a man’s game" but all that snide stuff that goes on in the box is far from manly and in my view brings the game into disrepute.

MotM – Distin

Overall I am glad it’s over and to be home. I hope football has moved on a little by the time we play them at home...Watching today, it seemed like both sets of players had decided that the game would be decided by any means bar a game of football. Both sets of fans were passionate but do we all really want our games like that!??

West Ham next and let’s hope it’s a humdinger of a FOOTBALL match and three away points would go a long way to cheer us up after that lot today.
UP THE BLUES

ps: I have now seen the Fellaini incident and one word: ‘Disgusting’.

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