First of all, well done Andy Carroll, straight from the bench to head home beautifully and rescue us a point. However we needed all three. We were extremely poor today and Stoke no better. Stoke’s plan was obvious, from kick off try win throw ins to allow Delap to do his thing either that, or they’d settle for a corner. The lads created one chance really throughout the game and local lad Carroll put it away, indeed the goal was all Andy’s as he had to well and truly finish it off. He had to generate enough power to loop over Thomas Sorensen and into the net. Let’s get the straight, we shouldn’t be celebrating about this point. We didn’t deserve it really and are still in the same position as we were 24 hours ago, in danger of going down.

The day started off quite well with Blackburn getting well beaten and then Sunderland too were defeated. It was up to us then to at least try and get a win at Stoke but from the very first minute I for one, couldn’t see us scoring many, or any at all. It was all Stoke, their strong center backs, Faye and Shawcross too much for Ameobi and Owen, as for the service, it wasn’t there. Guthrie tries his best but soon shows the signs of a tired man whilst we always had to be ready to get men behind the ball when playing only 3 at the back. A lot of credit is due to David Edgar who played really well for someone who doesn’t feature often. Otherwise we knew that one of the many set pieces Stoke had, one of them was going to find the net.

Shola didn’t pick up his man and Faye, who has a habit of scoring against us, header home past the on look Guthrie on the near post. However Stoke scored late at St.James’ and it was our turn to spoil their party. Damien Duff dinked a left footed cross in where Andy Carroll met it with every bit of power he could generate. A great header but a poor performance in general. We can only hope for better at Spurs or there’s only one way we’re going.

Comments appreciated 🙂

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