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PL: Stoke a Ratings and Reactions


limpid

Who was your man of the match?  

90 members have voted

  1. 1. Who was your man of the match?

    • Friedel
      0
    • Dunne
      14
    • Cuellar
      1
    • Warnock
      8
    • Collins
      42
    • Downing
      2
    • A Young
      4
    • Milner
      3
    • Petrov
      11
    • Carew
      2
    • Heskey
      4


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If only MON had gone for a forward in January.....

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Like who? FFS even Wenger couldn't find one

Get ready for the "I've not got a team of scouts" answer's this sort of question always produces. People are always keen to say what O'Neill should have done but rarely follow it up with names.

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If only MON had gone for a forward in January.....

T

H

I

S

Like who? FFS even Wenger couldn't find one

Get ready for the "I've not got a team of scouts" answer's this sort of question always produces. People are always keen to say what O'Neill should have done but rarely follow it up with names.

Kind of glad my bike packed up on me now so I could not get the tickets after watching it on the tinters, was even thinking of getting the 6am train over to Nottingham.

I found out the problem today and it was a £3 spark plug!!

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Kind of glad my bike packed up on me now so I could not get the tickets after watching it on the tinters, was even thinking of getting the 6am train over to Nottingham.

I found out the problem today and it was a £3 spark plug!!

Probably the best £3 you ever spent mate

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Just about the most frustrated I've been all season. I'm a big MON fan and he has my utmost respect but PLEASE make some bloody changes! He's just so stubborn, we've been poor for several games now. To watch that for 75 minutes and then think that swapping Gabby for Carew was going to make the slightest bit of difference shows something of a weakness - we didn't get a ball in behind them of note all game.

Ash, Downing and Milner were all poor and to not try and change the shape was sooooo annoying. How many times has MON said we're going to start rotating players because it's a long hard season and then picked the same 11 who've scrapped thorough, looking tired, for weeks now.

Albrighton, Delph, Delfouneso and Luke Young should all have played much more than they have this season. It says to players like Ash and Downing that it doesn't matter how you play, or how much effort you put in, you'll still be picked. I'm getting to the stage where I'm hoping for a sending off or minor injury, because that's the only way some of our players are going to be fresh at the end of the season.

Absolutely brilliant post and sums up my thoughts entirely.

Looking at the result on paper, as some are doing, it might not seem a bad result; but jesus christ there were so many utterly frustrating things about this match.

Where do I start? Well, firstly, the starting line-up. Carew was a certainty to start after last week, and every preview I had read this week had said they expected it to be Gabby up there with him, as any sane-minded person would expect. So I get in the ground, to find HESKEY still in the **** line-up, christ what does Carew have to do to knock him out of the team? Gabby hasn't had a broken leg, he had a virus, and looked fine when he came on, so why the hell didn't he start? By playing two 'big men' we just played straight into Stoke's hands by trying to match them in their best department, physicality and strength. How stupid can you get? If Gabby really wasn't fit enough then start DELFONESO for christ sake, not that big lummox who, by the way, has the touch of a rapist. And that's meant to be the strongest part of his game...

So that was the biggest mistake, it was never going to run smoothly with no pace up top and just two target men to lump the ball too in much the same fashion as Stoke do. Secondly, Milner, Downing and Young were all well below-par, not for the first time. I've been very dissappointed with Downing since his arrival to tell you the truth and even Milner's performances have been dropping of late. Maybe just maybe this has something to do with the fact that they are... wait for it... SHATTERED. Like has been mentioned, O'Neill always TALKS about beginning to rotate his team but he never bloody does unless it's enforced. We look tired, bereft of ideas, stale...and we are so, so predictable at the moment in both our football and our line-up. We need fresh legs, new ideas and new personnel to be given chances which should then motivate our 'starters' to up their game. Its hardly giving Downing & Co incentives to work hard when O'Neill blatently has SO little confidence in fringe players such as Delph, Nathan, Carew, Albrighton etc...

Another point. WHY does O'Neill seem incapable of making a substitution before 10 minutes to go? The game was bumbling along and Pulis put on Ricardo Fuller who's pace and energy changed the game. He caused us problems and almost scored a winner. Why do we never do the same? This was **** Stoke we were playing, not Real Madrid.

So on paper it might not seem too bad a point, but christ we really could have won this game if we had made basic, logical decisions and passed the ball around and looked hungry like we know we can. What made it even worse was that our fans were fantastic first half, and yet, the players looked like they were playing out the rest of the season in mid-table, not chasing a coveted prize (fourth place).

People saying Warnock had a good game- were you watching? He had another absolute shocker, particularly defensively, and was also very lucky not to be sent off for an ugly mis-timed challenge in the second half. I can't understand how anyone can vote him as MOTM :lol: Unless they are Stoke fans, because he certainly did more to aid their cause yesterday.

Very unhappy by the nature of the result, as we could easily have won this if we had played anything like we can. And as for Stoke, i've always backed them up for their style of football, I would now like to retract that comment. Every throw-in wastes at least 20-30 seconds so add that up during the space of a game and it's a stupid amount of time. They kill the tempo, kill the flow and they should start picking up bookings for time wasting because it's a disgrace. Unbelievably, in the second half, Delap took so bloody long over one throw-in that referee Kevin Friend jogged over (presumably to book him) and then just had a quiet word before commencing proceedings again (thus ironically wasting more time himself) it's crazy. And then only three minutes of stoppage time were played? Work that one out...

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Sigh. Note to self: must think one good result mustn't make me optimistic we've finally got it going. 2 points dropped.

Note to self: cheer the **** up! We didnt lose and Stoke away is always a v.tough game.

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