We still get tagged with the big ,strong athletic” tag then! https://oatcakefanzine.proboards.com/thread/309525/stoke-city-watford?page=2 Suppose Bayo could be in theory and there is Sierralta to put himself about.
Sierralta, athletic? Bayo at a push, but we're really lacking in pace at the moment and aren't exactly full of power neither
Was thinking more of the physical part but yes not much pace in the team. Maybe they think we still have Sarr and Pedro!? I think they are about as apathetic towards their team as we are tbh. Just waiting for it all to go wrong.
It's weird to see just how much the game has changed over the past ten or so years. Ex-PL sides like Stoke and Boro' would be clambering to be back in the big time. But as money and greed overtakes the biggest clubs, even the mediocre clubs are getting more pulling power hence why it is getting harder and harder to push for promotion. If you have been this division for as long as Stoke have, I guess you sort of accept it as being the norm. I have no doubt their fans' would love to be back in the PL, but a bit like us, they are short of the players (and money) to really challenge at the top end of the league. Ipswich and Sheff Wed of course also tasted the big time (Sheff Wed were mainstays for a long time), but they too struggled to cope with the ever changing game. Nowadays, I believe just having a local club to support is the dream. If you go up, fair enough, but staying up is so much more difficult now, and second season syndrome is still a thing for some clubs. It's not impossible to go up and stay there (we did it for a while), but that ambition is shrinking as the gap between the Championship and the PL gets wider every season. Of course if the divisions we're all on a level playing field it would be more entertaining for a neutral, but I guess then the MotD "experts" would have no big six to cream themselves over for nine months.
Slightly worried that today could be the day that we get caught out by playing it out from the back and Bachmann being way off his line but it's bound to happen at some point. Hopefully we give another good performance.
Or perhaps even more improbably Pozzo could get us into the playoffs and some people would still not be pleased.
John Collins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Collins_(footballer,_born_1968) Kalu's bingo partner.
That's a less than inspiring XI. No Sierralta, Sema starting when we have both Asprilla and Chakvetadze on the bench who cuts in better is not a great feeling.
Livermore will not last 90mins, but it's good to finally see Ince in the squad. Hopefully Hoedt can have another good game cleaning up Bachmann's miskicks. I agree we should of started Asprilla but maybe that's a halftime change pending on the scoreline.
