the kind of fare Stoke were hoping for three days before next season's cards go on sale. It has to be said it was a game of little skill from Stoke against a Hull side completely devoid of skill , which was ruined anyway by the ref. and his helpers who will score marks out of ten no higher than those of Hull. Fans who are iffing and arring whether to invest in next season will not be racing down to the Brit. on Tuesday , they will wait a bit longer to see if there is any improvement in squad quality. Nevertheless , I am a Stokie , and that means I will renew come what may. The six points from the last two games were much needed in our attempt to become a recognised top ten team , and I admit to having real doubts about our future after the no-show at Blackburn. A number eight spot in the EPL could mean a place in the Europa Cup ; at the moment we are just below Swansea ( eighth ) and WHU ( ninth ) both of whom we have to visit. If we can do a number on those two , who knows ? , we might achieve our highest finish in the Prem. Stephen Ireland has now joined the wounded as our fit squad numbers dwindle. I might sound like a broken record but surely we will have to strengthen in the summer ; the money must be available. We cannot expect to pick up almost free gems like Bojan again. Free transfers almost by definition cannot be along-term solution. Wollschied for example , although he played ok today , his lack of pace is alarming. Gotta go now the dinner gong has sounded. UP THE POTTERS
I hope we miss out on Europe if I'm honest, we haven't got the squad we would need and I could see our league form suffering for it. Not happy about Ireland do we know how long he will be out for I heard he needed a fair few stiches.
This seems to be our season to be blighted with injuries, hopefully it's just bad luck and nothing to do with the age of our squad or the number of games some of our core players have had to play.
There have been other seasons where we've pretty much secured our safety early on but then we've dropped off the pace. I think probably because Pulis focused on the magic 40 points. I don't think this team will do that. That's very gratifying.
Given all the injuries, I think we are doing very well. Only one team wanted to win that game, and it wasn't Hull City. 3pts.... Move on to Everton.