Dribble said:
Stoke were absolutely brilliant today and I've got no complaints. They defended as a team and attacked as a team and played as if they were high on crack from minute one to minute 94.
They came with a game plan and executed it perfectly so credit where credit’s due to Hughes. The bloke I was sat next to kept making mindless comments like 'Oh come on City, its Stoke FFS’ as if we had a god given right for them to just bend over whilst we stiffed them up the crease which just sounded Raggish to me. At one point I asked him what he'd do differently if he were Pellegrini but all he could keep saying was its Stoke FFS. During one of our attacks I counted 9 Stoke players in their area and when they broke from our attack I counted 6 of their players in or around our area. This wasn't a team who just turned up to fulfill the fixture, they came for a result and got it make no mistake about that.
What was strange for me was for the first time this season we looked fit and ready to start the season proper, but we ran into a Stoke team possessed. I spoke to a Rag earlier who was expecting me to make excuses like he was about Burnley saying Stoke only came to defend. I told him straight, Stoke looked us in the eye and took us on and thoroughly deserved their win and I don't think we had an off day either. When we raised the tempo, they matched us and although we were generally better in possession, when they had the ball it was evident that the days of Pulis's Stoke had been consigned to history because Stoke attacked us in an controlled fashion and with pace as if they knew what they were doing.
There wasn't one of our players who played that didn't deserve to be on the pitch and which ever team won today would have deserved it imo. Perhap Hart could have done better for the goal and Kolorov got left dead for pace wben trying to catch Diouf, but Diouf has been tearing it up in Germany recently with a 1 in 2 goal average and is no slouch either. IIRC Ferndinho had already been booked and was the last man, so he couldn't touch Diouf or we'd have been down to 10 men.
The only thing I would have done differently today is I'd have probably brought on Navas earlier because the middle was so congested we needed the ability to change tactics in game. We were also too slow on the break. Time after time I noticed that we seemed to lack the blistering pace to get beyond them on the break and we kept holding up our own play waiting for players to join in which gave Stoke the opportunity to get back into position.
On the left they kept doubling up on Kolorov to ensure he rarely got near the by-line so he had to keep slinging in crosses from long range which was never gonna help with those column like defenders Stoke had. Perhaps an out and out left winger would have been advantageous to us today, who knows, all I say is we played well and were beaten fair and square. We just need to wipe our mouths and move on to the next match and start preparing for other teams using this Stoke template to combat us with.
Having looked at the game again , I wouldn't agree that we played well , we were slow and often sloppy getting forward and only go a sense of urgency once we conceded and even then it was only in the last 20 minutes that we created a modicum of width.
Many players well below what they are capable of and they just expected it would happen.
It didn't because Stoke were well organised and closed the spaces but we made it relatively easy for them to do so.
Whether its early in the season cobwebs and a 6 day break I don't know but Stoke played a few that beat Portsmouth so no excuses on that front.
A poor day at the office and a compact opposition made for a poor match with neither keeper pressured into doing anything.
The one time Hart had to he came up short.
Stoke will accumulate too many point to go down but they won't be pressing for a Europa spot anytime soon.
Swansea , Southampton, Newcastle and even Hull I suspect will finish ahead of them this season.
By and large our games against Stoke are drab affairs with a mistake or two deciding the outcome except when we click at home and put them to bed early.
That was the key we had to come out the blocks and score early which would have changed the whole affair and we didn't do it.
We are only at 50 per cent if that with what we are capable of and will need to be to challenge the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal.
Spurs have a much better manager now than in the past so I suspect they will accumulate more points this season as well and some of them will be against sides they were beaten by last year.
