Back to the day job!…and welcome back 2 Metre Peter and side show Berahino!
Saido Berahino is hoping to make his first start for Stoke against us on Sunday so, is he going to put on a show for the cameras? We nearly bought him for £23m and then Stoke bought him for £15m. Saido is a box of problematic tricks for any club including recently serving an 8 week ban for spliffin some good class Ganja. I reckon we did well not to get his signature! Poch says we need patience if we are to win titles. Poch is shifting his position in terms of his immediate outlook for the club and I feel he is trying to manage the fans expectations. It’s now 9 years since we last won a trophy, longer than Woolwich did between 2005 and 2014! Our last FA Cup win was in 1991, and our last European title was in 1984! Clearly a club of our standing who are always in and around the top four for the last 6 seasons, should be close to winning silverware every season.
We clearly have some sort of mental barrier when Spurs appear in Europe or when we face a top 6 away from home. We also have a mental barrier at Wembley, our record since 2009 ain’t good; 1 win out of 10 appearances. We are now out of Europe so if we don’t make the FA Cup Final or we don’t finish 4th or higher in the Prem that’s not a reflection of who we really are as a squad. We have failed in two competitions, if we fail in the remaining two then we have to say we have under achieved yet again. For a team as good as ours we deserve more. The rumour is that Poch does not like the Europa but tactically Poch has some big questions to answer when it comes to Europe. Against Stoke he has no choice but to play Davies but Dier needs to go in the summer. Dier has become a liability. That leaves Poch with a headache with regard to his favoured 3 at the back until Rose returns. I can see Poch going back to a flat back 4 for Stoke with Son coming in for Dier.
We were comfortably outplayed at Anfield just when we could have done with the points. The problem we face is inconsistency. In the last few games we haven’t really turned up and I find it hard to fathom how injuries can affect a team quite so much as it does us. Without Rose we lose 50% of our attacking options. When 3-4-3 is replaced with a flat back 4 we seem to lose our free-flowing attack, it gets stuck in midfield. We know we have weaknesses in the squad and when you see players like Sissoko and Janseen suck it leaves us having to improve over the next 3 months with just essentially 13 players. We can’t fade as a team just because of injuries. Whatever we do in the summer we need to have yet another clear out and get in players of the calibre of Wanyama rather than passengers like Sissoko. Easier said than done! It’s understood that Levy still needs to prove to the Bank that he has over £200m available to go towards the new stadium, which is why talks with outside investors have been continuing. So where is Joe Lewis in all this he`s got the dosh why can’t he pitch in, not to mention City Hall and Haringey Council reneging on their original investment promise? The NLD has gone up from £420m to £750m. Our revenue next season may also be hit. We may not be allowed to sell out Wembley for all our homes games. Brent Council restrict Wembley to 37 full capacity events which means we could only have five homes games in front of 90,00 with the rest restricted to just 51,000, that means playing in a half empty stadium!
Hughes and his team return to the UK from a training break in Dubai. Meanwhile we have been playing every 3 to 4 days this month, so who will be the sharper? The lads left it all on the Wembley Pitch on Thursday night and you have to hope that the Gent defeat doesn’t turn into another morning after the night before performance against Stoke! Stoke are quietly having their best season since they got back in the Prem despite the fact that Manager Mark Hughes has almost never had a full-strength eleven to put on the pitch at any one time which means that, despite not having any kind of continuity for the team sheet or playing a regular system, they are still in 9th Place. Stoke have only one defeat in their last 7 matches including a home draw against United. They have consistently competed for a top-half finish since Hughes replaced Pulis in 2013, finishing ninth in each of their three seasons under him. They look well on course to accruing their largest points tally passing the 54 they got in 2014-15 – in a single Premier League season. Just like West Brom, Stoke are part of the awkward squad! We struggled to break down Middlesbrough and we struggled against Burnley at home and I can’t see this game being any different. We need our fast-flowing attacking Spurs back. I could watch Moussa all day but he needs someone playing closer so when he does beat his first and second man he can give the ball to someone who can take the ball forward rather than passing sideways. Stoke are a club in transition with Bojan heading an Exodus in the summer. There are some old legs playing for Stoke but they still make it difficult to score against them. Everton Struggled against them at Goodison and against Palace they won ‘ugly’. Kane and Alli will have to find a way around Bruno Martins Indi who is having a good season but Bony and Imbula have flopped badly. 2 Meter Peter does pose some ‘unique’ problems for defences! Whelan still has a good engine as has Joe Allen, who times his runs well and he will be one to watch, but, players like Shawcross and Charlie Adam will still try and kick us off the pitch! Playmaker Xherdan Shaqiri could return. Hughes says ‘the key to the game on Sunday is to start brightly and get a foothold in the game. Hopefully we will be sharp from the off. ‘They are a strong side, they are very impressive at home and we will be up against it. We are in good shape though.’
There is no subtlety with Stoke they don’t create many chances and rely more on one moment of quality or lapse in concentration by the opposition to get their goals which is why Dier shouldn’t be on the pitch. We hammered Stoke 0-4 twice in a row but in 2016 we infamously dropped points at home letting them get back from 2-0 to 2-2. Their lack of chances means if we get our noses in front it has to be by two or more goals, a 1-0 lead is a dangerous one against Stoke! If we lose this one the headlines will write themselves, we need a reaction to Thursday’s European suicide note!
COYS!!
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