Post Stoke – Bring On Wigan
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What a horrendous game it was on Monday.
Two poor sides, frightened of losing an important fixture (scary, it’s February and a home game against Stoke was considered a must win). Having drawn the game 1-1 we now look to Saturday and a win at home to Wigan is absolutely essential if we are going to avoid yet another relegation battle. We haven’t won for 11 games. After our last win (which happened to be against Arsenal) I didn’t think I’d be writing that this season.
There weren’t a great deal of positives we could take from the Stoke City game. We kept a clean sheet and on the most part we defended well but yet again there was no creativity going forward. And in terms of entertainment, it was about as fun as a vegetarian being shown around an abatoir.
We didn’t really test Sorensen. Whitehead come close to scoring for Stoke in the early part of the game but apart from that there was very little goal-mouth action. Whitehead should have been shown a red card when he kicked out at Cattermole but referee Howard Webb completely bottled it, deciding to give him a yellow instead. On the whole, Webb was shocking. Kenwyne Jones was constantly fouled throughout by Shawcross and Huth but Webb bottled several strong penalty shouts.
So, on to the Wigan game. New signings Alan Hutton and Benjani Mwaruwari are likely to feature in the game. Michael Turner should be back in action, deputising for the injured John Mensah. Ricco is unlikely to be fit for the game and Anton Ferdinand is still out. Brucie’s under a lot of pressure to get a win.
I think we have enough quality in our side to turn our season around and get back to winning ways tomorrow.
Haway the lads.
