Stoke City made a horrible return to action after the international break with a 3-0 home defeat to Blackburn Rovers. Here are the talking points from the bet365 Stadium.
It probably says a lot that there was no sponsor’s man of the match and, if there had been, the main contender was probably the lad from the half-time challenge. No player did anything to get fans singing with anywhere near as much gusto as Nathan Heaney.
There was so much possession but so little purpose and no sustained threat. It was like a football washing machine, going around in circles in the middle. There was a moment in the first half when Daniel Johnson, in space on the edge of the area, declined an ambitious shot or risky pass in favour of just trying to keep the ball – to the point where his dawdling just got him tackled.
There was no leader at either end of the pitch to really offer confidence that Stoke could score or keep it out. The defending was not convincing, the central attack barely existed. Dwight Gayle only had 15 touches, Wouter Burger and Ben Pearson had a combined 199.
It was a thudding, deflating afternoon and every conversation when leaving the stadium was about taking one step forward and then going back. There is a thirst for momentum, to be a team that is hard to beat even if it’s finding hard to score, just to be a team that is going even slowly in the right direction.
Supporters will simply not accept losing 3-0 at home. The trouble has been that they don’t get a choice.
Conceding three in one match doesn’t automatically mean it’s time to rip up the defence and start again, especially when the same defence has just kept four clean sheets in a row, but these goals were alarming.
The defending for the fourth minute corner was filthy, the collective and individual decision-making for the second and third goals was floundering and the ease at which Blackburn could split the back line with one pass was damning.
Alex Neil said: “It’s arguably three or four moments in the game that we just didn’t deal with. It was a straightforward corner that we just didn’t deal with, it was a straightforward corner; the second goal we need to clear our lines and the second phase doesn’t happen; and the third goal, their lad is on the ball, we had two v one with Szmodics on the outside of us and we need to take care of the space.
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