Monday 23 November 2009

Portsmouth (h) Sun 22nd Nov - Not one for the neutral.


I would like to start off with a sincere apology to any neutral fan who forced themselves to watch the Stoke Vs Portsmouth game on Sky this past weekend. It was mind-numbingly boring and quite possibly the least entertaining game you will see on TV in quite some time.

That being said, please bare in mind that as tedious as it was for you, at least you were warm and dry and indifferent to its outcome. Winter arrived in earnest for this game, and due to the Britannia doubling up as a wind tunnel, Saturday was a particularly cold and wet afternoon and one which I was grossly unprepared for.


Newcomers to the Brittania may notice a strange sight on winter match day afternoons as hundreds of Michelin Men plod reluctantly up the pathways to the ground. This is not due to an obesity epidemic striking Stoke-On-Trent, but due to a cunning survival method picked up by long suffering fans. The central tenant of this survival plan being strict adherence to the mantra 'you can never have enough layers'.


Perched on top of a wind-battered hill, and thanks to a complete lack of foresight from it's designers meaning that three of it's corners remain open to the elements, the Britannia Stadium can make a pretty good claim for being the coldest ground in England. Unfortunately for me, I had temporarily taken leave of my senses and decided that 3 layers would be sufficient for this game. Several shivering hours later, as the feeling returned to my hands and nether regions, I reminded myself that for the next 2 or 3 months, 'you can never have enough layers'.

Leaving the meteorological issues aside for now, there remains the issue of the match itself. On the walk to the ground as me and my dad entered into our usual game of predicting the day's team, the grim realisation hit us once again......we know EXACTLY what team Tony Pulis will play today. Pulis is a manager who has built a career around producing solid teams who don't concede. Unfortunately, this can make for fairly gruelling viewing at times and as such, despite his success, Tone has alienated a large portion of our fanbase, who may support the team, but will never support his methods.

As a result of this commitment to producing a robust and 'hard to break down' side, Tone has adopted an infuriating tactic of sidelining most of the creative players we possess. In their place he favours rugged workhorses who will throw themselves into tackles all day long, but unfortunately not add much in the way of goal-scoring threat. As such, grafters such as Dean Whitehead, Salif Diao and Rory Delap are currently three quarters of Tone's preferred midfield. Each of them a solid enough player, but never likely to set the pulses racing. Considering we are at home and facing a dismal Pompey side who are bottom of the League with only 7 points to their name, me and Keeling senior briefly hoped for an attacking and dynamic midfield quartet who will really take the game to the opposition. Tone has other ideas however, 'best keep it tight', he thinks. Best not give too much away.



So while Matthew Etherington retains his place on one wing, (a glimmer of attacking hope in our midfield), there is unfortunately once again no place for Liam Lawrence, Glenn Whelan or Tuncay Sanli. Granted, Whelan picked up a slight groin strain playing for Ireland in the week and Tone didn't want to risk him. Ok, fair enough, I'll give him that one. However, Liam may have played in the week for Ireland as well, but the man is a professional sportsman, and one whose key attribute is his tireless work ethic, could he not of perhaps managed a further 90 minutes 4 days later?

Finally, there is what I will now term the Tuncay conundrum. Tuncay Sanli is the Turkish national team captain and an extremely skilled attacking player. Stoke signed him in the Summer to everyone's surprise for a fee of around £5 Million. To this date, he has yet to start a league game for us. This fact is made all the more confusing when it is taken it account how versatile Tuncay is. Whilst primarily a striker, he is able to function equally as well as an attacking midfielder or even a winger.

However, in order to accommodate Whitehead and Diao in the centre of midfield, Tone needs to find room for the human slingshot that is Rory Delap. Away from home against top opposition, this has some degree of logic to it, as his long throws provide us with a much needed weapon. But you'd like to think we could go without for a home game against weak opposition. Alas, it is not to be under Tone, and so Tuncay Sanli, Turkish national team captain and creative dynamo, is kept on the bench and off the wing in favour of a workhorse central midfielder who could not beat a man and cross a ball if his life depended on it.

As one might imagine with this uninspiring engine room, Stoke lacked any real cutting edge in the first half and forwards Ricardo Fuller and James Beattie were woefully short on service. Now, while I may moan about Tone's midfield team selection, I do nonetheless accept that the players he chooses are of at least a moderate standard. They are all decent enough players who as little as 4 or 5 years ago i'd of been ecstatic to have in our team. However, at times today some of our passing is just plain bad, not unlucky or unfortunate, just bad.


When I watch teams like Arsenal or Chelsea on TV, I often see them break from one end of the pitch to the other with an almost majestic grace and beauty. Pin-point passing and fast, dynamic movement perfectly combine to produce flowing attacking football that as a neutral you can't help but admire. Against Portsmouth, Stoke's counter-attacking effort is more akin to watching the Chuckle Brothers in action. "To me, no to you...oh no we've dropped it". Surely Arsenal and Chelsea's millionaires aren't THAT much better than our boys. They may be better players, but they aren't completely different creatures.


We never really get into second gear in the first half, and the embarrassing lack of 'highlights' from this opening 45 minutes on Match of the Day is testament to the crapness of this half of football. A fine Thomas Sorenson save from a woeful Pompey penalty is about all the excitement we get.

The second half is a better, if still not exhilarating, show from our lot. Soon enough Tone makes a much needed double substitution. Firstly Liam Lawrence is brought on, (looking as sprightly as ever) but who else do we we have on of the bench to provide us with that much needed attacking edge? That's right, you guessed it.....Mama Sidibe.


This move by Tone was never in any doubt to any regular attendee of Stoke's games for the past 2 or 3 seasons. Big Mama is a Tony Pulis favourite, nay, THE Tony Pulis favourite. For several years he proved the basis of our attacking play. Big hoof up to the lofty Mama, he flicks it on and then Fuller beats as many defenders as he can and smacks it in the net. This fool proof plan surprisingly doesn't work quite as well in the Premier League as it did in the Championship. John Terry ET AL find it a bit easier to contain this ingenious tactic.

Many thought Mama would struggle with the step up to the Premier League, but to be fair to him, he's equipped himself reasonably well. Knowing his own limitations, he usually sets about winning as much as he can in the air and holding the ball up as much as possible, whilst leaving the more frivolous footballing jobs such as beating men or, you know, scoring goals, to his team mates.


It is Mama's limitations that contribute to one of the more surreal moments of the game. After a nice bit of interplay between Etherington, Whitehead and Fuller, Ricardo superbly curls home his first goal of the campaign to give us a precious one goal lead. Shortly after, another bit of link up play between Lawrence and Fuller puts Mama through on goal. About 8 yards out, and to the right hand side of the goal, this is a guilt edged chance and one any Premiership striker should slot away with no hesitation. Mama however, manages only to skew the effort well wide and the shot just about manages to avoid going out for a throw. A goal here and the tension is lifted, the supporters can relax slightly (though never too much knowing Stoke), and judging by Pompey's own overwhelming crapness, a win would be all but assured.

So, Mama misses, and what is the crowd reaction? An almost synchronised groan followed by a lighthearted chuckle. That's right, a groan and a chuckle. You can hear people chortling to their mates and noting "that was typical Sidibe" or "ah well, it was Mama" as if it is almost acceptable and all just a big in-joke amongst Stoke fans.

This miss is treated with the same kind of warm reassuring reaction that you give your drunken mate on a Friday night when he drops his kebab on his shoes and falls headfirst into a bush. "Haha, typical Dan, he's harmless really. It wouldn't be a night out without him making a tit of himself". This is the attitude that we Stoke fans have towards Mama. He only be a grafter with limited abilities......but he's OUR grafter with limited abilities. It seemingly wouldn't be a Stoke game without one vintage Mama miss.


Luckily though, we held on for the win. Pompey looked a very poor side and they really are going to struggle if they don't invest in some fresh talent come January. The post-match atmosphere around the ground was one of grudging satisfaction. We got the three points, were 9th in the league, but the dismal performance had hardly set pulses racing. I for one subscribe to the mindset that as long as we win, I don't care too much how we got there. It's games like today that do test this theory however.

If Ricardo hadn't of shown is class in producing a top draw finish, we could very easily of drawn that game 0-0. The mood afterwards would definitely of been markedly different had we drawn with the league's bottom club at home. A result that was certainly not a million miles away from happening.

On Radio Stoke after the game the legendary Stoke commentator Nigel Johnson was conducting his usual interview with Tony Pulis. As always, the gaffer justified his team selection and complemented the lads for working aaaarrrrd. Gingerly warming my hands on the car heaters I almost missed one choice nugget from Tone. Lamenting to Nigel about Tuncay's continued lack of games, Pulis decreed "you can't play Ricardo and Tuncay together in the same team". Come again Tone? You can't play two extremely talented and creative forwards in the same team? I beg to differ. What you mean is, they can't play together in one of YOUR teams.

Now I am not part of the ardent anti-Pulis brigade, after all it's playing Tone's way that got us into the top flight, but lets tell it like it is here. Few other managers would decide there is no way to play two top draw players in the same side as each other simply because one of them isn't capable of playing 'the Mama role'.


It would appear the Tuncay conundrum shows no sign of being solved just yet.

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