Sheaf Saint

All ifs, buts and maybes. Stewart can't be relied upon to stay fit, Archer looks like he never wanted to be here in the first place, and BBD's confidence is completely shot. Adams got 16 goals in 23/24, but his overall contribution was much greater than just that. He played an excellent support role and was very good at bringing others into play, allowing Armstrong for instance (who has been woeful so far this season without that kind of support) to score many more. If you offered me the chance to trade all three of them in for Adams as he was this time 2 years ago (as that's what we're comparing here), I would snap your hand off.

And therein lies the problem. The ball crossed the line nearer to the centre of the goal than the far corner. If it was too far to his left then all that proves is that his positioning was crap.

Now you're just being deliberately obtuse. Adams, for all his faults, brought far more to the team than Stewart and Archer combined ever have. And to suggest otherwise is beyond delusional. Edit - and Stu was a big player for us last time in this league. And you're saying you're happier that we have a player who is in all likelihood going to be sold before the end of the window? Wow.

Hopefully this will convince SR that we need a first choice keeper. Shots like this, from that angle, should only ever go in if they creep just inside the post. But once again Baz has got his positioning all wrong and conceded from a low shot to his left in the centre of the goal. Like he's done over and over again since we signed him. If he's still our No1 after the window closes then that's the final nail in the coffin for SR as far as I'm concerned.

The stats don't tell the full story though, and are only in our favour thanks to the red card. The simple fact is that Stoke were better than us tactically. They didn't give our midfield any space at all to play through them and they caused us massive problems on the counter by playing the ball forward quickly from every turnover and keeping our defence hemmed in. So I disagree with your assessment that we could 'easily' have won. We didn't deserve to, despite the glaring misses. Once we gifted them a two goal lead to protect, with a man down they were always going to just park the bus and we have proven time and time again in recent years that we just don't have the quality in attack to play through a well organised low block and create good chances. Stoke fully deserved to win that, and pointing to our stats overlooks the fact that we were woeful for large periods of the game.

And the only other signing so far has got Rasmus' fingerprints all over it and Spors probably had little to do with it.

Stoke did a number on us. They were well organised and attacked at pace. We were disjointed and pedestrian.

I think the point is that we haven't been able to replace the dead wood, hence they are still first choice (and being made captain).

Did you miss that 5-0 defeat at Sunderland this time 2 years ago then?

Credit to Robins. He knows how to set a team up and get them playing to win games in this league. Schooled WS today. Where's the urgency and the physicality we were promised? Not one of our strikers comes out of the first 3 games with any credit so far. Very concerning if we're pinning our hopes on DD because he was dreadful again today. Flynn had an absolute shocker. Gave the ball away so needlessly for their first goal, missed an absolute sitter, and then in injury time when we're trying to get the ball in the box he's playing lazy backward passes on the halfway line with no Stoke players near him. Could Baz have done better with the second goal? Difficult to see from the angle I saw but it was a very tight angle and nowhere near the corner of the goal. Robinson looks like the only attacking player to pose any real threat at the moment. Everyone else is just fucking garbage. We've got a lot of work to do this week to bring in the players WS wants and needs so he can play his preferred formation.

All just far too pedestrian. Looks like too many players are still playing Russball.

Oh my fucking god.

It was Downes, not Downs.

Downes HAS to score that. What the fuck!

Absolutely this. Sticking with a back 3 at home against ten men is unforgivable.

Diving Mubama.

So fucking sloppy from Downes to give that away in midfield.

Fuck. Downes put us bang in trouble there.

I hope you're not suggesting that should have been a penalty.

In one sense it does. But 2 of our shots off target hit the post and were both closer to scoring than anything Stoke have managed so far, despite their overall dominance.

Fucking hell this ref! That's so obviously a corner FFS

I already did 😉

Get Arma off at HT. Once again he's been completely ineffective and the ball keeps coming straight back at us.

Off the post twice!

5-0 now!