bluevengence
Well-Known Member
fred_zeppelin said:
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ........fell asleep after reading the first couple of lines of that drivel
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Well done Stoke
- Thread starter bugsyblue
- Start date
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ........fell asleep after reading the first couple of lines of that drivel
MysticalDescent
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 19 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 75
As a Stoke supporter, I'm quite honestly amazed at this thread. Slightly disappointed as well actually, I expected this sort of football snobbery from the precious, non-contact tippy-tappy clowns at Arsenal, but not from your lot. I always thought that being stuck next to that sickening mess of a club next door to you you'd be a bit more down to Earth and have a real appreciation of what the game's about. Unfortunately, a lot of posters on here seem to have had their heads turned by the Arab billions and have lost their way.
Would I pay to watch Stoke every week? Yes I would, and I do. Sunderland asides, we are the ONLY team in the Premier League to play the game in the spirit it was intended. No diving (Adebayor, Richards, Wright-Phillips), no feigning injury (Adebayor, Wright-Phillips), no harassing the referee (de Jong), just good, hard-but-fair football. Would our support be nearly as good if we were a bunch of boring, halfway line tippy-tappy cheats? Of course we wouldn't. We may get regularly punished for it, but the Stoke mentality is that if you're on the receiving end of a kick, you get up and get on with the game - see Whelan getting up and wagging his finger at Vieira after his forced vasectomy, or Andy Wilkinson getting kicked in the head against Blackburn and then getting straight up to try and seek out the player who did it, before then standing and having his stitches put in on the pitch. That's the way we play the game and we're proud of it. We're proud of the fact that our long throws keep on showing up overpaid prima-donna defenders who have had life far too easy in the Premiership, just dealing with the boring tippy-tappy stuff and becoming completely incapable of dealing with any variety in attack. I can't see how we're supposed to be horrible to watch when our style of play is based around getting the ball into the goalscoring area as soon as possible. We're not remotely interested in tippy-tappying it around on the halfway line before giving the ball away or smacking it out for a goal-kick. That kind of tedious, tedious rubbish is coma inducing stuff that has only one purpose - keeping the more precious players and the 'new' fans happy. Again, see Arsenal for that.
So would I pay to watch Man City every week? Without meaning to be too offensive here, no I wouldn't. I sit behind the dugouts and very rarely see a manager so vile as Mancini. Off the top of my head, in recent years I can only think of Ferguson, Benitez and Ramos who were worse. If Tony Pulis spent the game sticking his fingers up at Alan Wiley, he'd have quite rightly been sent to the stands. Mancini, however, spent the first half screaming at Wiley while making that Italian gesture that looks sort like waving an imaginary card except done at mouth level and got away with it. At half time, with Man City very lucky to have 11 men on the pitch, Mancini and Kidd followed Wiley all the way back to his dressing room, still bawling at him. I don't know what was said and done, but we all saw the completely different second half refereeing performance, further details of which can be found here. I've seen plenty of threads on here performing an autopsy on your current squad and I'll just throw some suggestions into the ring. It is to Mark Hughes' eternal shame that somebody with his reputation should spend so much money on so many mentally and physically weak players. It is to Mancini's shame that he should persist in playing these players. When we saw that Toure and Adebayor were on the team sheet, we were all licking our lips. When your backs are against the wall, those two are complete liabilities. Toure doesn't seem to have worked out that the best way to stop the long throw is to stop needlessly putting the ball into touch in your own half and then collapses whenever a ball does come into the box. If we include the disallowed goal from Tuesday, that's 4 long throw goals he's been involved in now and in all of them his defending was very suspect. He needs getting rid of immediately and a real centre-back being brought in. As for Adebayor, you may want to watch a video of us playing Arsenal at home last season. Fun clips include him getting frustrated and stamping on a Stoke player, pleading with Wenger to substitute him and then hilariously staggering about the pitch before lying on the floor in a crucifixion position demanding be let off the pitch. On Tuesday night he just wasn't up for the battle again and spent most of the game cowering around. The only incident he had any part in was the sending off, his part being to unnecessarily roll around on the floor clutching his leg. For a player to indulge in that kind of antic is indicative of a lack of dignity, self-respect and, of course, complete mental fragility. Mancini doesn't appear to have the tactical nouse of Hughes either. It took Hughes about 10 minutes of watching video footage of us to work out that if you can cut out our target man and isolate Fuller, we'll offer almost no threat. To do this, he deployed Kompany in a defensive midfield position in the game at the CoMS with the sole duty of man marking Sidibe. This left four defenders to deal with Fuller. It worked a treat and you eased to victory. Over 180 minutes, Mancini has failed to notice this and has given Sidibe a free rein, allowing him to get all over the opposition half winning the ball in the air and playing in Fuller time and time again. The end result is that over the two games, you can barely think of 20 minutes worth of play where you were in control. I think somebody has to do a lot of soul searching when at your place, the best player on the pitch was Sidibe and at our place the best two players on the pitch were Fuller and Delap.
As for the time taken for a Delap throw - if you want 30 seconds injury time for every throw-in, we want 30 seconds for every corner and free-kick you have. It's a goalscoring opportunity for us and we need to get our routine set up to give us the best possible chance of scoring. By and large, the same people who have spent this season complaining about the time it takes for a throw-in to be taken are the same ones who spent last season rimming the Androgynous Wonder at The Shit last season, as he stood with his legs wide open for a couple of minutes before he could be bothered toe-bunting his free-kick towards the goal. It takes some gall to say we were timewasting to be honest, what with Given's first half antics when you were playing for the 0-0.
The atmosphere - again, sitting behind the dugout I'm in a pretty good position to hear what comes from both ends. Neither sets of fans were outstanding and your lot were pretty quiet asides from barracking the referee as he went towards the tunnel. We weren't at our best in terms of songs, but we did recreate the bizarre phenomenon wherein highly paid professional footballers shrink and make stupid mistakes when faced with a bit of booing. Don't worry though, you're not the only team to suffer from this. Last season, when we got beat 5-0 at the Theme Park, the Androgynous Wonder was still the worst player on the pitch by a long, long way, making stupid mistakes, giving the ball away and even whining to the police and referee about the nasty Stoke fans calling him names. When we played against them at home on Boxing Day, he was again absolutely woeful and should have been sent off for a Vieira style kick-out at Wilkinson. Don't ask me why it happens, but it does.
By the way, what's with your pitch? That astroturf that's virtually on the touchline is downright dangerous and did for Etherington.
Good luck for the rest of the season, I'd much rather you got fourth place than Liverpool. Just don't go all continental and non-contact, buy some proper footballers with your money instead.
Would I pay to watch Stoke every week? Yes I would, and I do. Sunderland asides, we are the ONLY team in the Premier League to play the game in the spirit it was intended. No diving (Adebayor, Richards, Wright-Phillips), no feigning injury (Adebayor, Wright-Phillips), no harassing the referee (de Jong), just good, hard-but-fair football. Would our support be nearly as good if we were a bunch of boring, halfway line tippy-tappy cheats? Of course we wouldn't. We may get regularly punished for it, but the Stoke mentality is that if you're on the receiving end of a kick, you get up and get on with the game - see Whelan getting up and wagging his finger at Vieira after his forced vasectomy, or Andy Wilkinson getting kicked in the head against Blackburn and then getting straight up to try and seek out the player who did it, before then standing and having his stitches put in on the pitch. That's the way we play the game and we're proud of it. We're proud of the fact that our long throws keep on showing up overpaid prima-donna defenders who have had life far too easy in the Premiership, just dealing with the boring tippy-tappy stuff and becoming completely incapable of dealing with any variety in attack. I can't see how we're supposed to be horrible to watch when our style of play is based around getting the ball into the goalscoring area as soon as possible. We're not remotely interested in tippy-tappying it around on the halfway line before giving the ball away or smacking it out for a goal-kick. That kind of tedious, tedious rubbish is coma inducing stuff that has only one purpose - keeping the more precious players and the 'new' fans happy. Again, see Arsenal for that.
So would I pay to watch Man City every week? Without meaning to be too offensive here, no I wouldn't. I sit behind the dugouts and very rarely see a manager so vile as Mancini. Off the top of my head, in recent years I can only think of Ferguson, Benitez and Ramos who were worse. If Tony Pulis spent the game sticking his fingers up at Alan Wiley, he'd have quite rightly been sent to the stands. Mancini, however, spent the first half screaming at Wiley while making that Italian gesture that looks sort like waving an imaginary card except done at mouth level and got away with it. At half time, with Man City very lucky to have 11 men on the pitch, Mancini and Kidd followed Wiley all the way back to his dressing room, still bawling at him. I don't know what was said and done, but we all saw the completely different second half refereeing performance, further details of which can be found here. I've seen plenty of threads on here performing an autopsy on your current squad and I'll just throw some suggestions into the ring. It is to Mark Hughes' eternal shame that somebody with his reputation should spend so much money on so many mentally and physically weak players. It is to Mancini's shame that he should persist in playing these players. When we saw that Toure and Adebayor were on the team sheet, we were all licking our lips. When your backs are against the wall, those two are complete liabilities. Toure doesn't seem to have worked out that the best way to stop the long throw is to stop needlessly putting the ball into touch in your own half and then collapses whenever a ball does come into the box. If we include the disallowed goal from Tuesday, that's 4 long throw goals he's been involved in now and in all of them his defending was very suspect. He needs getting rid of immediately and a real centre-back being brought in. As for Adebayor, you may want to watch a video of us playing Arsenal at home last season. Fun clips include him getting frustrated and stamping on a Stoke player, pleading with Wenger to substitute him and then hilariously staggering about the pitch before lying on the floor in a crucifixion position demanding be let off the pitch. On Tuesday night he just wasn't up for the battle again and spent most of the game cowering around. The only incident he had any part in was the sending off, his part being to unnecessarily roll around on the floor clutching his leg. For a player to indulge in that kind of antic is indicative of a lack of dignity, self-respect and, of course, complete mental fragility. Mancini doesn't appear to have the tactical nouse of Hughes either. It took Hughes about 10 minutes of watching video footage of us to work out that if you can cut out our target man and isolate Fuller, we'll offer almost no threat. To do this, he deployed Kompany in a defensive midfield position in the game at the CoMS with the sole duty of man marking Sidibe. This left four defenders to deal with Fuller. It worked a treat and you eased to victory. Over 180 minutes, Mancini has failed to notice this and has given Sidibe a free rein, allowing him to get all over the opposition half winning the ball in the air and playing in Fuller time and time again. The end result is that over the two games, you can barely think of 20 minutes worth of play where you were in control. I think somebody has to do a lot of soul searching when at your place, the best player on the pitch was Sidibe and at our place the best two players on the pitch were Fuller and Delap.
As for the time taken for a Delap throw - if you want 30 seconds injury time for every throw-in, we want 30 seconds for every corner and free-kick you have. It's a goalscoring opportunity for us and we need to get our routine set up to give us the best possible chance of scoring. By and large, the same people who have spent this season complaining about the time it takes for a throw-in to be taken are the same ones who spent last season rimming the Androgynous Wonder at The Shit last season, as he stood with his legs wide open for a couple of minutes before he could be bothered toe-bunting his free-kick towards the goal. It takes some gall to say we were timewasting to be honest, what with Given's first half antics when you were playing for the 0-0.
The atmosphere - again, sitting behind the dugout I'm in a pretty good position to hear what comes from both ends. Neither sets of fans were outstanding and your lot were pretty quiet asides from barracking the referee as he went towards the tunnel. We weren't at our best in terms of songs, but we did recreate the bizarre phenomenon wherein highly paid professional footballers shrink and make stupid mistakes when faced with a bit of booing. Don't worry though, you're not the only team to suffer from this. Last season, when we got beat 5-0 at the Theme Park, the Androgynous Wonder was still the worst player on the pitch by a long, long way, making stupid mistakes, giving the ball away and even whining to the police and referee about the nasty Stoke fans calling him names. When we played against them at home on Boxing Day, he was again absolutely woeful and should have been sent off for a Vieira style kick-out at Wilkinson. Don't ask me why it happens, but it does.
By the way, what's with your pitch? That astroturf that's virtually on the touchline is downright dangerous and did for Etherington.
Good luck for the rest of the season, I'd much rather you got fourth place than Liverpool. Just don't go all continental and non-contact, buy some proper footballers with your money instead.
bluwes
Well-Known Member
I got to 4 words in, anyone beat that
Wrighty Wrexham
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 17 Mar 2009
- Messages
- 5,239
No diving (Adebayor, Richards, Wright-Phillips), no feigning injury (Adebayor, Wright-Phillips), no harassing the referee (de Jong),
Beat you I got to that bit above!!
Beat you I got to that bit above!!
MysticalDescent said:As a Stoke supporter, I'm quite honestly amazed at this thread. Slightly disappointed as well actually, I expected this sort of football snobbery from the precious, non-contact tippy-tappy clowns at Arsenal, but not from your lot. I always thought that being stuck next to that sickening mess of a club next door to you you'd be a bit more down to Earth and have a real appreciation of what the game's about. Unfortunately, a lot of posters on here seem to have had their heads turned by the Arab billions and have lost their way.
Would I pay to watch Stoke every week? Yes I would, and I do. Sunderland asides, we are the ONLY team in the Premier League to play the game in the spirit it was intended. No diving (Adebayor, Richards, Wright-Phillips), no feigning injury (Adebayor, Wright-Phillips), no harassing the referee (de Jong), just good, hard-but-fair football. Would our support be nearly as good if we were a bunch of boring, halfway line tippy-tappy cheats? Of course we wouldn't. We may get regularly punished for it, but the Stoke mentality is that if you're on the receiving end of a kick, you get up and get on with the game - see Whelan getting up and wagging his finger at Vieira after his forced vasectomy, or Andy Wilkinson getting kicked in the head against Blackburn and then getting straight up to try and seek out the player who did it, before then standing and having his stitches put in on the pitch. That's the way we play the game and we're proud of it. We're proud of the fact that our long throws keep on showing up overpaid prima-donna defenders who have had life far too easy in the Premiership, just dealing with the boring tippy-tappy stuff and becoming completely incapable of dealing with any variety in attack. I can't see how we're supposed to be horrible to watch when our style of play is based around getting the ball into the goalscoring area as soon as possible. We're not remotely interested in tippy-tappying it around on the halfway line before giving the ball away or smacking it out for a goal-kick. That kind of tedious, tedious rubbish is coma inducing stuff that has only one purpose - keeping the more precious players and the 'new' fans happy. Again, see Arsenal for that.
So would I pay to watch Man City every week? Without meaning to be too offensive here, no I wouldn't. I sit behind the dugouts and very rarely see a manager so vile as Mancini. Off the top of my head, in recent years I can only think of Ferguson, Benitez and Ramos who were worse. If Tony Pulis spent the game sticking his fingers up at Alan Wiley, he'd have quite rightly been sent to the stands. Mancini, however, spent the first half screaming at Wiley while making that Italian gesture that looks sort like waving an imaginary card except done at mouth level and got away with it. At half time, with Man City very lucky to have 11 men on the pitch, Mancini and Kidd followed Wiley all the way back to his dressing room, still bawling at him. I don't know what was said and done, but we all saw the completely different second half refereeing performance, further details of which can be found here. I've seen plenty of threads on here performing an autopsy on your current squad and I'll just throw some suggestions into the ring. It is to Mark Hughes' eternal shame that somebody with his reputation should spend so much money on so many mentally and physically weak players. It is to Mancini's shame that he should persist in playing these players. When we saw that Toure and Adebayor were on the team sheet, we were all licking our lips. When your backs are against the wall, those two are complete liabilities. Toure doesn't seem to have worked out that the best way to stop the long throw is to stop needlessly putting the ball into touch in your own half and then collapses whenever a ball does come into the box. If we include the disallowed goal from Tuesday, that's 4 long throw goals he's been involved in now and in all of them his defending was very suspect. He needs getting rid of immediately and a real centre-back being brought in. As for Adebayor, you may want to watch a video of us playing Arsenal at home last season. Fun clips include him getting frustrated and stamping on a Stoke player, pleading with Wenger to substitute him and then hilariously staggering about the pitch before lying on the floor in a crucifixion position demanding be let off the pitch. On Tuesday night he just wasn't up for the battle again and spent most of the game cowering around. The only incident he had any part in was the sending off, his part being to unnecessarily roll around on the floor clutching his leg. For a player to indulge in that kind of antic is indicative of a lack of dignity, self-respect and, of course, complete mental fragility. Mancini doesn't appear to have the tactical nouse of Hughes either. It took Hughes about 10 minutes of watching video footage of us to work out that if you can cut out our target man and isolate Fuller, we'll offer almost no threat. To do this, he deployed Kompany in a defensive midfield position in the game at the CoMS with the sole duty of man marking Sidibe. This left four defenders to deal with Fuller. It worked a treat and you eased to victory. Over 180 minutes, Mancini has failed to notice this and has given Sidibe a free rein, allowing him to get all over the opposition half winning the ball in the air and playing in Fuller time and time again. The end result is that over the two games, you can barely think of 20 minutes worth of play where you were in control. I think somebody has to do a lot of soul searching when at your place, the best player on the pitch was Sidibe and at our place the best two players on the pitch were Fuller and Delap.
As for the time taken for a Delap throw - if you want 30 seconds injury time for every throw-in, we want 30 seconds for every corner and free-kick you have. It's a goalscoring opportunity for us and we need to get our routine set up to give us the best possible chance of scoring. By and large, the same people who have spent this season complaining about the time it takes for a throw-in to be taken are the same ones who spent last season rimming the Androgynous Wonder at The Shit last season, as he stood with his legs wide open for a couple of minutes before he could be bothered toe-bunting his free-kick towards the goal. It takes some gall to say we were timewasting to be honest, what with Given's first half antics when you were playing for the 0-0.
The atmosphere - again, sitting behind the dugout I'm in a pretty good position to hear what comes from both ends. Neither sets of fans were outstanding and your lot were pretty quiet asides from barracking the referee as he went towards the tunnel. We weren't at our best in terms of songs, but we did recreate the bizarre phenomenon wherein highly paid professional footballers shrink and make stupid mistakes when faced with a bit of booing. Don't worry though, you're not the only team to suffer from this. Last season, when we got beat 5-0 at the Theme Park, the Androgynous Wonder was still the worst player on the pitch by a long, long way, making stupid mistakes, giving the ball away and even whining to the police and referee about the nasty Stoke fans calling him names. When we played against them at home on Boxing Day, he was again absolutely woeful and should have been sent off for a Vieira style kick-out at Wilkinson. Don't ask me why it happens, but it does.
By the way, what's with your pitch? That astroturf that's virtually on the touchline is downright dangerous and did for Etherington.
Good luck for the rest of the season, I'd much rather you got fourth place than Liverpool. Just don't go all continental and non-contact, buy some proper footballers with your money instead.
Fair play for you coming on here and making a passioned defence of your team and its tactics.
Personally speaking I dont find the Stoke way of playing is worth watching as an entertainment. I think you will find this too after a couple more years in the premier. I think you are still have the small time mentality of trying to put one over the big boys. If you want to be successful in this league you are not going to do it by playing long ball.
Come back in a couple of years when the novelty of the premier has worn off, I bet you'll be longing for the pitch to be widened and play some open and expansive football
whydelilah
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 16 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 155
dasblues said:MysticalDescent said:As a Stoke supporter, I'm quite honestly amazed at this thread. Slightly disappointed as well actually, I expected this sort of football snobbery from the precious, non-contact tippy-tappy clowns at Arsenal, but not from your lot. I always thought that being stuck next to that sickening mess of a club next door to you you'd be a bit more down to Earth and have a real appreciation of what the game's about. Unfortunately, a lot of posters on here seem to have had their heads turned by the Arab billions and have lost their way.
Would I pay to watch Stoke every week? Yes I would, and I do. Sunderland asides, we are the ONLY team in the Premier League to play the game in the spirit it was intended. No diving (Adebayor, Richards, Wright-Phillips), no feigning injury (Adebayor, Wright-Phillips), no harassing the referee (de Jong), just good, hard-but-fair football. Would our support be nearly as good if we were a bunch of boring, halfway line tippy-tappy cheats? Of course we wouldn't. We may get regularly punished for it, but the Stoke mentality is that if you're on the receiving end of a kick, you get up and get on with the game - see Whelan getting up and wagging his finger at Vieira after his forced vasectomy, or Andy Wilkinson getting kicked in the head against Blackburn and then getting straight up to try and seek out the player who did it, before then standing and having his stitches put in on the pitch. That's the way we play the game and we're proud of it. We're proud of the fact that our long throws keep on showing up overpaid prima-donna defenders who have had life far too easy in the Premiership, just dealing with the boring tippy-tappy stuff and becoming completely incapable of dealing with any variety in attack. I can't see how we're supposed to be horrible to watch when our style of play is based around getting the ball into the goalscoring area as soon as possible. We're not remotely interested in tippy-tappying it around on the halfway line before giving the ball away or smacking it out for a goal-kick. That kind of tedious, tedious rubbish is coma inducing stuff that has only one purpose - keeping the more precious players and the 'new' fans happy. Again, see Arsenal for that.
So would I pay to watch Man City every week? Without meaning to be too offensive here, no I wouldn't. I sit behind the dugouts and very rarely see a manager so vile as Mancini. Off the top of my head, in recent years I can only think of Ferguson, Benitez and Ramos who were worse. If Tony Pulis spent the game sticking his fingers up at Alan Wiley, he'd have quite rightly been sent to the stands. Mancini, however, spent the first half screaming at Wiley while making that Italian gesture that looks sort like waving an imaginary card except done at mouth level and got away with it. At half time, with Man City very lucky to have 11 men on the pitch, Mancini and Kidd followed Wiley all the way back to his dressing room, still bawling at him. I don't know what was said and done, but we all saw the completely different second half refereeing performance, further details of which can be found here. I've seen plenty of threads on here performing an autopsy on your current squad and I'll just throw some suggestions into the ring. It is to Mark Hughes' eternal shame that somebody with his reputation should spend so much money on so many mentally and physically weak players. It is to Mancini's shame that he should persist in playing these players. When we saw that Toure and Adebayor were on the team sheet, we were all licking our lips. When your backs are against the wall, those two are complete liabilities. Toure doesn't seem to have worked out that the best way to stop the long throw is to stop needlessly putting the ball into touch in your own half and then collapses whenever a ball does come into the box. If we include the disallowed goal from Tuesday, that's 4 long throw goals he's been involved in now and in all of them his defending was very suspect. He needs getting rid of immediately and a real centre-back being brought in. As for Adebayor, you may want to watch a video of us playing Arsenal at home last season. Fun clips include him getting frustrated and stamping on a Stoke player, pleading with Wenger to substitute him and then hilariously staggering about the pitch before lying on the floor in a crucifixion position demanding be let off the pitch. On Tuesday night he just wasn't up for the battle again and spent most of the game cowering around. The only incident he had any part in was the sending off, his part being to unnecessarily roll around on the floor clutching his leg. For a player to indulge in that kind of antic is indicative of a lack of dignity, self-respect and, of course, complete mental fragility. Mancini doesn't appear to have the tactical nouse of Hughes either. It took Hughes about 10 minutes of watching video footage of us to work out that if you can cut out our target man and isolate Fuller, we'll offer almost no threat. To do this, he deployed Kompany in a defensive midfield position in the game at the CoMS with the sole duty of man marking Sidibe. This left four defenders to deal with Fuller. It worked a treat and you eased to victory. Over 180 minutes, Mancini has failed to notice this and has given Sidibe a free rein, allowing him to get all over the opposition half winning the ball in the air and playing in Fuller time and time again. The end result is that over the two games, you can barely think of 20 minutes worth of play where you were in control. I think somebody has to do a lot of soul searching when at your place, the best player on the pitch was Sidibe and at our place the best two players on the pitch were Fuller and Delap.
As for the time taken for a Delap throw - if you want 30 seconds injury time for every throw-in, we want 30 seconds for every corner and free-kick you have. It's a goalscoring opportunity for us and we need to get our routine set up to give us the best possible chance of scoring. By and large, the same people who have spent this season complaining about the time it takes for a throw-in to be taken are the same ones who spent last season rimming the Androgynous Wonder at The Shit last season, as he stood with his legs wide open for a couple of minutes before he could be bothered toe-bunting his free-kick towards the goal. It takes some gall to say we were timewasting to be honest, what with Given's first half antics when you were playing for the 0-0.
The atmosphere - again, sitting behind the dugout I'm in a pretty good position to hear what comes from both ends. Neither sets of fans were outstanding and your lot were pretty quiet asides from barracking the referee as he went towards the tunnel. We weren't at our best in terms of songs, but we did recreate the bizarre phenomenon wherein highly paid professional footballers shrink and make stupid mistakes when faced with a bit of booing. Don't worry though, you're not the only team to suffer from this. Last season, when we got beat 5-0 at the Theme Park, the Androgynous Wonder was still the worst player on the pitch by a long, long way, making stupid mistakes, giving the ball away and even whining to the police and referee about the nasty Stoke fans calling him names. When we played against them at home on Boxing Day, he was again absolutely woeful and should have been sent off for a Vieira style kick-out at Wilkinson. Don't ask me why it happens, but it does.
By the way, what's with your pitch? That astroturf that's virtually on the touchline is downright dangerous and did for Etherington.
Good luck for the rest of the season, I'd much rather you got fourth place than Liverpool. Just don't go all continental and non-contact, buy some proper footballers with your money instead.
Fair play for you coming on here and making a passioned defence of your team and its tactics.
Personally speaking I dont find the Stoke way of playing is worth watching as an entertainment. I think you will find this too after a couple more years in the premier. I think you are still have the small time mentality of trying to put one over the big boys. If you want to be successful in this league you are not going to do it by playing long ball.
Come back in a couple of years when the novelty of the premier has worn off, I bet you'll be longing for the pitch to be widened and play some open and expansive football
Firstly, excellent post MD. Some very good points made (and made well).
dasblues, no disrespect but if you spend hundreds of millions of pounds then you would expect a better quality of “football” as a fan. It will take us a few years yet to improve and if you think we are poor now then let me assure you, we were a lot, lot worse a few years ago.
At times we play some ugly stuff and most Stokies freely admit that. We do, however, play some decent stuff at times. I hope that if we can stay in this league a few years longer and invest in a better quality of player then our “football” will improve to.
As for where we are at right now, I think the Arsenal match is a pretty good indicator. The first goal came from a long throw in but the second and third goals came from moves down either flank, with crosses that led to good finishes. We are a team that can mix it up. We play long and direct at times but we can also mix it up and play on the deck.
I haven’t seen you play often enough to make an accurate judgement but from the stuff you played in our last 2 meetings, if I was a Man City fan I’d be expecting a lot more than that. That being said, you’ve had some great results this season that indicate you can play better than what you have against us so it’s a case of finding that higher level more consistently.
WD
"hard-but-fair football" and from your link, "What followed was a chase and a superb challenge from behind that won the ball, before the last man (Collins) received the ball from the tackle and moved away with it. Wiley quite correctly adjudged it a fair challenge. The linesman waved his flag furiously and penned the referee into making the wrong decision. Adebayor didn’t help with his cowardly rolling around on the floor. It was not a sending off because Faye was not the last man, Collins was, and he won the ball"
Fair play for defending your team but how does this "analysis" really equate with what happened, watch the replays mate, sorry but your credibility got thrown out the window by Rory Delap and is still hurtling down the M6 as we speak.
Fair play for defending your team but how does this "analysis" really equate with what happened, watch the replays mate, sorry but your credibility got thrown out the window by Rory Delap and is still hurtling down the M6 as we speak.
whydelilah said:dasblues said:Fair play for you coming on here and making a passioned defence of your team and its tactics.
Personally speaking I dont find the Stoke way of playing is worth watching as an entertainment. I think you will find this too after a couple more years in the premier. I think you are still have the small time mentality of trying to put one over the big boys. If you want to be successful in this league you are not going to do it by playing long ball.
Come back in a couple of years when the novelty of the premier has worn off, I bet you'll be longing for the pitch to be widened and play some open and expansive football
Firstly, excellent post MD. Some very good points made (and made well).
dasblues, no disrespect but if you spend hundreds of millions of pounds then you would expect a better quality of “football” as a fan. It will take us a few years yet to improve and if you think we are poor now then let me assure you, we were a lot, lot worse a few years ago.
At times we play some ugly stuff and most Stokies freely admit that. We do, however, play some decent stuff at times. I hope that if we can stay in this league a few years longer and invest in a better quality of player then our “football” will improve to.
As for where we are at right now, I think the Arsenal match is a pretty good indicator. The first goal came from a long throw in but the second and third goals came from moves down either flank, with crosses that led to good finishes. We are a team that can mix it up. We play long and direct at times but we can also mix it up and play on the deck.
I haven’t seen you play often enough to make an accurate judgement but from the stuff you played in our last 2 meetings, if I was a Man City fan I’d be expecting a lot more than that. That being said, you’ve had some great results this season that indicate you can play better than what you have against us so it’s a case of finding that higher level more consistently.
WD
We have been awful to watch of late, but still try to play with the ball on the floor.
I think managers like Pulis are scared to try the football route in the fear of getting a hammering every week. I suppose it makes for a more varied league but the presence of teams like Stoke make a mockery of the claim that it is the best league in the world. Football at the highest level should be the shining light for all the other divisions to aim for. Unfortumately Stoke play football that should be more suitable for league 2, its effective. Imagine of the whole league played your brand of football, do you think we would see packed stadiums each week?
I dont buy into all the cheating either but unfortunately thats the way the game is going now. Its slowly crept into the game over the past 20 years.
I'll be glad when Stoke evetually get relagated. Come on admit it, you must be embarrassed when the whole crowd celebrates a throw in like a goal.....
whydelilah
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 16 Feb 2010
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- 155
dasblues said:whydelilah said:Firstly, excellent post MD. Some very good points made (and made well).
dasblues, no disrespect but if you spend hundreds of millions of pounds then you would expect a better quality of “football” as a fan. It will take us a few years yet to improve and if you think we are poor now then let me assure you, we were a lot, lot worse a few years ago.
At times we play some ugly stuff and most Stokies freely admit that. We do, however, play some decent stuff at times. I hope that if we can stay in this league a few years longer and invest in a better quality of player then our “football” will improve to.
As for where we are at right now, I think the Arsenal match is a pretty good indicator. The first goal came from a long throw in but the second and third goals came from moves down either flank, with crosses that led to good finishes. We are a team that can mix it up. We play long and direct at times but we can also mix it up and play on the deck.
I haven’t seen you play often enough to make an accurate judgement but from the stuff you played in our last 2 meetings, if I was a Man City fan I’d be expecting a lot more than that. That being said, you’ve had some great results this season that indicate you can play better than what you have against us so it’s a case of finding that higher level more consistently.
WD
We have been awful to watch of late, but still try to play with the ball on the floor.
I think managers like Pulis are scared to try the football route in the fear of getting a hammering every week. I suppose it makes for a more varied league but the presence of teams like Stoke make a mockery of the claim that it is the best league in the world. Football at the highest level should be the shining light for all the other divisions to aim for. Unfortumately Stoke play football that should be more suitable for league 2, its effective. Imagine of the whole league played your brand of football, do you think we would see packed stadiums each week?
I dont buy into all the cheating either but unfortunately thats the way the game is going now. Its slowly crept into the game over the past 20 years.
I'll be glad when Stoke evetually get relagated. Come on admit it, you must be embarrassed when the whole crowd celebrates a throw in like a goal.....
We play within our means, it’s pretty simple really.
Why should we try and play like Arsenal when it’s quite obvious we can’t and we’d just end up being relegated? We play to our strengths and that’s all there is to it. We make it difficult for teams; why should we go out, play expansive stuff and make it easy for everyone? The throw ins, the long balls, the hard work – none of it is illegal. It’s up to others to break us down and beat us. If they, then fair do’s.
Mowbray brought West Brom up into the Premier League and got praise all last season yet took them straight back down again because his players weren’t good enough. He blatantly admitted that he refused to change his style (Which some found admiral but I found it a bit suspect – he was paid to do his best for the club after all. If that means changing his style to give his team a better chance then surely he should have done that? But hey, what do I know). On the back of that relegation Mowbray then gets given the Celtic job and he’s done an even worse job up there with his “football ethos”.
When you see Arsenal in full flow it is quite a spectacle to watch. When you see a moment of magic from Rooney it is a bit special.
The fact is we can’t live with the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and United.
People never gave us a chance of staying up last season but we proved them all wrong. The same people then said we’d suffer second season syndrome but we’re doing alright so far.
We make no apologies about the way we play. I don’t think Stokies will accept the same old, same old for years to come though. As we begin to invest in the team I hope to see our play improving.
For now though, we’ll continue doing what we do. I am happily paying to watch it week in, week out. We may lack a bit of quality but we more than make up for it in terms of passion, work-rate and commitment. That sends most of us home happy and proud most weekends win, lose or draw.
WD