Yesterday, in the Quarter Final of the FA Cup, Stoke City travelled to Liverpool in the biggest game of their season. Instead of relishing the occasion and getting behind their (dirty/ugly) team, the fans decided to use the game as a platform to sing about Liverpool players and forgot that they were there to watch their team.
We should also not forget that on the pitch Stoke played very little football and decided to perform tactics only bettered by Warren Gatland's Wales the previous day.
On a very good day for Liverpool and within a victory for the whole of the football loving world, Stoke City showed what a class act they are.
Just to echo the thoughts of many others before me, get well soon to Muamba. This has been a very worrying story. Fingers crossed.
Just what is the point of Stoke City?
posted on 19/3/12
TB did you just say 'whatever JB'?? if you have stuck your hand up and moved your head from side to side then we have reached a new low on here.....
posted on 19/3/12
109 comments.
posted on 19/3/12
I don’t like to have a go at opposition players but I agree with Doc with regard to Shawcross, but I think Huth is worse. They are the dirtiest players I have ever seen but somehow they get away with their dirty antics
posted on 19/3/12
comment by Blue_mooning (U12093) posted 2 hours, 11 minutes ago
Haha you are clueles lad. If anything im sticking up for the smaller team.
I have had a season ticket since 1997 i will support City even if it all goes wrong and we end up like leeds.
Judging by your comments you are a plastic armchair fan.
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smaller teams can do anything they want? The way Huth and Shawcross pull and push players is now beyound believe. I think you support them cos City are still a small team
posted on 19/3/12
No one from Stoke can defend themselves here as there isn't a single Stokie on this site.
So i will as i have lived here for 35 years. I do agree that some of their play can go beyond the limits sometimes, in Shawcross and Huth they have two no nonsense centrehalves that 30 years ago were common place. The game has moved on and is obviously more technical these days, Stoke play the older outdated version. Nothing wrong if it gets them results and more importantly keeps the club in business.
nonsense centrehalves that 30 years ago
posted on 19/3/12
Just announced - Fabrice Muamba is showing a slight improvement. Good news
posted on 19/3/12
Zabi
I never said they can do what they want. I said what was wrong with gaining progress each year and supporting your local team. I assume you mean small club. Because our team is full of talent.
Read all the comments before u make one yourself.
posted on 19/3/12
Nothing wrong if it gets them results
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Well that's not strictly true now, is it?
Stoke have an all-round cynical approach, comprising a number of underhanded tactics such as systematic fouling, outrageous levels of shirt-tugging/wrestling at set pieces, time-wasting etc. These practices are against the rules, so there patently is something wrong with it.
This Emperor's New Clothes attitude that people have towards Stoke is beginning to grate almost as much as Stoke's approach itself; they break the rules, everyone can see that they break the rules, but rather than their approach being labelled as breaking the rules, it's dressed up as an almost endearing quirk that can't be criticised.
So, according to this unique regard in which Stoke are held, whilst someone like Christophe Berra may be booked by a referee and admonished by a commentator for clattering a nippy forward, when Wilkinson/Shawcross/Huth/GenericStokeClogger/Collins does it, the referee accepts that he can't start doling out cards immediately (because Stoke would be down to 7 men after 12 minutes) and the commentator will have a chuckle with his co-commentator about how the forward will know he's been in a game after the 90 minutes are up.
Ditto the way tussling at corners is dealt with/viewed by commentators and referees - when any other players are at it to any obvious extent, the referee will let them know immediately that it won't be tolerated and commentators will bemoan how often it happens these days, but when Stoke do it, it's okay (see my comment earlier about the CC game and how the referee spent AGES trying to sort out the jostling - if it was anyone other than a Stoke player being that persistent, he'd have been booked after the second/third time he bear-hugged the striker).
Then there's the Delap towel routine that takes 20 seconds when Stoke are chasing the game, but can take a minute and a half when Stoke are seeing a game out. That is scandalous when you consider that anyone else in the Premier League is hurried by the ref if their throw-in starts taking anywhere on the region of 12 seconds when their team is winning.
Rule-breaking is rule-breaking, and it's nothing short of bizarre that a team is treated and viewed with more LENIENCY when they decide to make a habit of it. There is no logical reason for why a Stoke player fouling and time-wasting is accepted by the authorities and by football-watchers in general - the only similar scenario I can think of is the way referees and commentators think it's okay for Paul Scholes to put in two-footed/high/studs-up tackles that would have them spluttering if it was another player (as long as the other player doesn't play for Stoke).
In short, nobody has answered Jav's initial question as to what the point of Stoke is, so I think we're all in agreement that their squad should be thrown off Niagra Falls, Tony Pulis should be fed to a crocodile and The Britannia should be disassembled, with the spare scrap metal being divided evenly amongst those clubs in the PL hoping to build new stadiums that actual football will be played in.
posted on 22/3/12
Amazing how an accurate and reasoned response gets ignore eh Doc? It's wasted on some people.
After all you wrote too!
posted on 22/3/12
I have to use ja606 on my mobile too, Jav, that was excruciating to write out on touchscreen!
The debate is settled though; not one reasonable explanation as to what the point of Stoke is.
I nearly cried last night