DAVE Kitson used to watch long balls fly over his head with the same despair as if watching his plane head for Spain after missing his holiday flight.

The 30-year-old looked no more likely to be mistaken for Mama Sidibe in the street than successfully fill the "Mama Role", which has been an enduring part of Stoke's success over the last three years.

There is no blame attached here. Kitson has just found the transition tough from the apparently more "cultured" style which helped Reading take the Premier League by storm in their first season, and then bomb straight out of it again in their second.

Stoke, however, are planning on sticking around the top flight for a third campaign.

Having turned up back at Reading and then Middlesbrough over the last 12 months as a sharpshooter for hire, the £5.5m hitman is starting to suggest he could have a future with the Pulis posse after all.

He was handed his first league start for City since September on Saturday and, in the opening 45 minutes in particular, produced his best performance since joining the club in the summer of 2008.

When he was not leaping like Sidibe to win flick-ons against Spurs centre-halves Michael Dawson and Sebastien Bassong, he was chasing deep into his own half to dispossess Luka Modric with a flying tackle.

There was plenty of impressive stuff on the deck too as he surged past a defender with a smart touch and turn of pace one moment and delivered a dangerous low cross into the penalty area the next.

His frustrating experience over the last two seasons tells us it would be premature to hail this game the dawning of the "Kitson Role" behind Ricardo Fuller in City's attack.

What we can say is the striker could not have done much more to impress.

Kitson's performance was high among consolations City could take from this game, despite the 2-1 defeat.

Were Stoke scrambling to avoid relegation, then talk of consolations from defeat would be missing the point.

As it is, City's excellent work earlier in the season has lifted them 12 points clear of the drop zone.

With Portsmouth already gonners, relegation for Stoke would need a horrendous collapse from the Potters, coupled with an unlikely recovery from Burnley or Hull.

You will not hear this sort of complacent talk around the squad, of course.

It is hard to imagine any Tony Pulis team has ever been accused of clocking off early for their summer holidays, but if any questions lingered about Stoke's appetite they were answered in a stirring second-half display after Dean Whitehead's 49th-minute dismissal.

They already trailed to Eidur Gudjohnsen's 46th-minute strike.

But having levelled through Matthew Etherington's penalty, Stoke could were only a Fuller mishit and a Sidibe slip away from claiming at least a point.

Maybe they would have done had their bogeyman Mike Dean not sent off his third Stoke player this season by handing Whitehead a harsh second yellow card.

Let us put away the paranoia. The referee is not on a mission to get Stoke relegated.

However, a combination of coincidence and bad decisions have made him City's least favourite official – and that's never an easy title to gain while Alan Wiley can brandish a whistle.

It is only fair to point out that Dean did give Stoke a penalty for Benoit Assou-Ekotto's shove on Kitson.

The decision, however, was not as unexpected as Dean's extravagant gesture to the spot, a remarkably theatrical effort.

Sadly, the penalty was not enough, because Spurs snatched it through Niko Kranjcar's 77th-minute strike to join the select band of teams to win away at the Brit this season.

Only the three title candidates, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea, along with surprise package of the season Birmingham had previously managed it.

Average teams and soft teams do not win games at the Britannia any more. Spurs looked neither.

For attacking strength they had Peter Crouch, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Gudjohnsen, Kranjcar, Gareth Bale and the brilliant Modric.

For defensive steel they had holding midfielder Younes Kaboul, who is possibly the most impressive character in yellow boots since Eric Twinge transformed into Bananaman at 29 Acacia Road.

They needed them all against a 10-man Stoke side which was roared on by a baying Britannia and simply refused to accept defeat.

No wonder Harry Redknapp saw this result as a major step towards taking Spurs into the Champions League.

He said: "Someone said to me Aston Villa only got a point at Stoke. I said 'only'. That's a great point. If you come to Stoke and get that you have done very well.

"Stoke never give up. We have good footballers, but we compete and you have to.

"If you don't compete here, you get run over."