Martin Smith: The signs aren't good, but we can turn fortunes around
STOKE fans struggling to get away from the Britannia on Saturday may have been worrying about two things.
How on earth to make it home in the dreadful weather conditions and just how this season will pan out for The Potters.
It's been a campaign of extreme highs and rather depressing lows so far and there's no doubting that we're in something of a trough right now.
The defeat against Sunderland was the fourth consecutive home game we've failed to win. We'd certainly have backed ourselves to pick up more than two points in home fixtures against Aston Villa, Wigan, West Brom and Sunderland.
Sunderland didn't play particularly well and certainly not well enough to deserve all three points.
The game was swung in their favour by a contentious refereeing decision – the sending-off of Robert Huth.
With 10 men Stoke showed great heart and spirit and were worth at least a draw. But we've now won two of our last 10 home games and 'Fortress Britannia' looks as though its walls have been breached.
Our home ground has been the bedrock on which everything has been built since we arrived in the Premier League and, if we can't get our act together, we'll be looking over our shoulders.
I'm not ready to press the panic button because we have seen this type of situation before, where things look to be turning against us and then we suddenly pick up.
But I can fully understand the concerns of some supporters.
Despite our manager's appeals for people to not get carried away with their expectations, fans will always demand improvement, or at least the continuation of a good thing.
That is particularly the case when we spent as heavily as we did in pre-season.
An outlay of £20m is more money than many of our rivals have invested, so there will always be questions about how well the money was spent and how it has improved us as a club.
At the moment we are below halfway in the league and struggling for goals. In fact, only bottom club Wigan have scored fewer in the league than we have.
Normally we'd argue the relatively few goals we've scored is not too damaging because of the few goals conceded.
That's not the case this season, though, as only five teams have a worse goal difference and only six have conceded more.
Scoring goals does appear to be a problem, especially from open play.
We are a team which sets up to create situations from set-pieces, so we should expect there to be a bias in that direction.
But when goals from free-kicks, corners and throws dry up (and they certainly have on that third front) we struggle and are susceptible to smash-and-grab raids like Sunderland's.
We shouldn't give up hope yet and there's no reason to despair.
Things in the league are pretty bleak at the moment, but we're fighting on two cup fronts and we still have the players capable of turning things around.
It was at the beginning of March last year that we looked as though we were starting to struggle. Our league form appeared to be going down the toilet and the performances at home to West Brom and away to West Ham were particularly poor.
Suddenly, everything turned around. It was as though a beam of light came gleaming through a break in the clouds.
We completed our epic run to the FA Cup final and played the best football produced by any Stoke side since, well, I don't know when.
I have said it before, but it's worth repeating – there was magic happening at Stoke towards the end of last season and you only have to think back to remember just how good we can be.
We need to remember what was happening in the final third of last season and try to recapture that form with two out-and-out wingers, two forwards in form and a fiery belief in what we were doing.
The answers are within us. We just need to put the pieces back together and get back to what we have done so well in the past.
I have no doubt that TP and his players can do it.
More Stoke City articles:
Stoke City: Sunderland boss says Huth had to go ... but backs Pulis over play-acting
Stoke City: Coates sees red as Huth appeal is dismissed
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15 Comments
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by deadlyscfc
Friday, February 10 2012, 7:30PM
“Wilson has created a problem,we all would love to see him in midfield,but he has very rarely let us down at left back,and currently we do not have any one who can do a better job.Higgy came in and was well off the pace probably responsible for 2 goals against.Left backs are a limited breed and not readily available.If we are to invest we may have to go down a division to find one.We now see why Danny Collins was used there.”
by soccerfoot11
Friday, February 10 2012, 4:17PM
“potterforlife, thank heaven for small favors!! oh yeah and my post on crouch was anything but negative !
some people just cant handle the truth I suppose !”
by potterforlife
Friday, February 10 2012, 4:11PM
“So you respond to my post with more criticism, just like your post on Crouch, you just cannot stop criticising - that is just not what a true supporter does, sorry. Of course frustration can be shown, but it is ALL you do, as I have just stated, you cannot help yourself. I will not get drawn into a long corrospondence with you, for this very reason.”
by soccerfoot11
Friday, February 10 2012, 2:58PM
“potterforlife. Of course we dont believe the players or management take any notice of what is said here, thats exactly the reason we use this medium to show our frustrations at what is going on. Until i came on this site, i had never known fans to blindly disregard bad play from a team how the "we are just so happy to be in the prem" attitude added to the "who cares if we win lose or draw we are just happy to go to games" crowd is new to me. Supporting a team or anything else in life does not mean you overlook all the bad stuff that happens and focus on just the good stuff. The fact we have won once in 8 games seems to delight some folk, they justify it, strangely enough by reminding themselves of where we were 10 years ago and how cold it was on a tuesday night against some 3rd division team !! People say I dont give praise when we do well, which is untrue, but with only 8 wins all season, the praise doesnt come along too often. Stating the obvious i.e. we cant score, our central midfield is pathetic and the manager makes very strange squad selections, is not complaining, its well, stating the obvious. Its fans wondering why their team is playing so badly and why we are not improving 4 season and millions upon million of pounds into the Prem !”
by potterforlife
Friday, February 10 2012, 8:03AM
“It is really rather sickening to see all of the negative comments on these pages. I have been reading for several weeks and only ever see the same. But to criticise the FA cup final achievment last year is probably the worst. But in current circumstances, I find it hard to comprehend why? When a team is playing badly, in my book if you are a true supporter of that team, then you go out and support them, not criticise all the time! Do the writers who are so negative think it does any good? do they really believe that the players and coaches at Stoke take any notice of these comments? The only thing I can see these complaints doing is depressing said players and coaches! Now what good would that do, in fact where does it do any good? Nowhere for me - nowhere at all. The motivation has to be self-centred and for me the club is bigger than them all. It strikes me that you can see who were the 12000 who were at the Brit through thick and thin and who are numbered amongst the other 10000 that have now swelled the ranks (if indeed they ever visit the Brit!)The swelling is welcome, but please keep your negative comments to yourselves - support the team you state you love; stop knocking it, no good comes of it - no good at all.”
by aasaa
Thursday, February 09 2012, 3:57PM
“How long wil the best midfield player in the squad be deployed at left-back?”
by soccerfoot11
Wednesday, February 08 2012, 9:13PM
“I suppose it was epic just in that we got there ! As far as getting there it was relatively easy, the only surprise in the whole tournament was how badly we beat Bolton !Then we lost to the only good team we faced !But we got to the final, something we have NEVER done, so lets try harder to get there again !
and win it !”
by angusmac43
Wednesday, February 08 2012, 8:04PM
“No need to worry fans. Crawley only scored four last night. Will this meen a ten man wall to combat them?”
by Watcher1950
Wednesday, February 08 2012, 6:05PM
“Mr Smith quotes Stokes "epic" cup run last season! Epic? does that mean beating a rag-bag selection of teams mainly at home and then losing to the first decent side faced? Methinks a bit O.T.T.What is epic is that T.P. can keep a one -dimensional team in a respectable position in the P.L.”
by stonemel
Wednesday, February 08 2012, 5:37PM
“Of course Pulis did not become bad overnight. He punched above his weight to get out of the Championship. He has always been a below average Premiership manager!”