As the January transfer train rolled into the speculation station, the rumours were firing on all cylinders. Strong indications came from t'mill of a loan offer with an option to buy for Enzo Le Fee from Roma. A name commentary teams will no doubt love to shout. In Thursday’s pre-match presser RLB implied the deal was underway. One report even suggested the option to buy would be in the region of over 20 million. But knowing what football writers are like I took that with a pinch of salt. Wait, what? At first a midfield addition seemed excessive due to the slight improvement of our injury list. But burnout was a threat to the young lads and a 24 year old is practically a pensioner by our standards and would put a bit of experience in the squad. A talented player with many minutes under his sports bra should boost the abundance of midfield talent we already have. In the past we haven't been the fastest acting club in the transfer market so it was nice to see us come quick out the gates with a solid plan. Touch wood. As for paying his wages for the rest of the season - we'd have to wait and see if Le Fee would pay off.
Anyway, it was our turn to play host to Stoke in what felt like the umpteenth round of the FA cup. When we played them last month we somehow managed to make one of the worst teams in the league look bang average. Before thwarting 3rd place Blades two matches later. It's a Sunlun' thing. The lads had looked knackered at times over the Christmas period, which is totally understandable given the abundance of fixtures. More importantly they showed their metal on more than one occasion. Our composure and grit seemed to show we were learning fast.
In recent games some of Captain Dan and Jobe’s link up play had been a joy to watch. Neil seems to be looking more of the lynchpin between defence and attack, while Jobe has looked powerful and calm. Apart from when he nearly exploded after scoring at Swansea. Milan Aleksic seemed to have a point to prove and had recently ran at defences like Dan Neil on Redbull. While he hadn't proved too effective, he'd shown us he was up for it. Good lad. Our make shift wideman - Aouchiche had also been also showing he could get the job done, supplying an ample amount of balls to our forwards. Mayenda and wacky Wilson Isidor even seemed to be taking turns playing as out and out forwards. At points we were playing 442. Who'd have thunk it?
Portsmouth’s pluvial pilgrimage petered out and hadn't brought out the best out of us, but we still won. So that was even more traction in our favour. Would RLB take the chance and experiment? Possibly. Did we have a point to prove? I think so. Was it freezing? Abso-flipping-lutely.
3pm proper kick off time. Haway the lads.
RLB had in fact chosen to mix things up a bit and hand out some well earned rest to a handful of regulars. Connolly got his second start. Hjelde also started, adding to his 12 minutes of game time so far this season. Another comforting name on the team sheet was that of Chris Rigg. Welcome back Riggy. Harrison Jones had been doing well in EPL 2.0 and started in place of Bellingham.
Stoke pressed us early. Aouchiche and Alese linked up well but the early positives were soon over shadowed by a mental back pass to the keeper. L09 tripped up the attacker pretty much on the penalty spot. No complaints on the decision here. If I'd have been listening on the radio and heard him do it I probably wouldn't have argued either. Water off a ducks back for Lukey though. Fun fact O9 is eligible to play for Singapore’s national side via a maternal grandparent. Anyway 1-0 to Stoke 4 mins in, we'd need something much more 'fun' to improve the afternoon. We had work to do.
Return of the Rigg and he was looking as bight as ever, with a slip early on being the only thing between him and a promising chance on goal. Connolly broke after a set piece but someone had failed to tell him about Mayenda's lethal overlaps. Aaron went down the left instead and a shot from Adil went straight into one of our own players. Better. Stoke however had heard all about Mayenda and doubled up on him every time he was on the ball.
A check on the 20 minute marked should possession 60/40 in the oppositions favour. Stoke began to bully us and a free from us kick lead to a great ball into Mayenda. Rigg tried to grab the game by the scruff of the neck but was given a yellow card softer than a hot pink slice. Once again Connolly failed to see over a blade of grass next to him didn't spot Eli's run, but did manage to win a free kick on the edge of the box. Up stepped Aouchiche, he's been our best set piece taker recently but the bar for that mantle is lower than Connolly's shin pads. I’ll leave you alone now Aaron.
Bellingham was seen warming up on the side-lines. No mean feat in the current climate. We were doing better but had still only managed one shot on target by the 40 minute mark. Adil tried to double that effort with a stonking shot from outside the box but was off the mark. After some of his whifflers last Sunday he'd definitely spent the week practicing putting his laces through it.
Mayenda rampaged through there and doubled our shots on target. Early on he was definitely looking like our most dangerous player. Rigg kept up with that role in a very close second place by breaking some ankles down the right and winning another free kick. While the decent ball in from Hume did find L09’s for foreheed, it was splattered high and wide. Perhaps we should give our moustachioed menace a turn with a few dead ball situations. It was definitely worth a go based that one.
At halftime and one nil down to a silly penalty we needed to make some changes. I'm not going to write it off and say we should focus on the league, even though we've made 5 changes since we last played them I'd rather we didn't let Stoke beat us twice in a row. We're better than that.
We started the second half with everyone lined up on the halfway line and no changes. Fair enough. Eli made it all the way to the six yard box but his shot was blocked. Stoke were smiling and starting to looked confident. A horrible thing to see. They began to bother us with more shots in the final third, although one did end up in row Z. Mr Le Bris need a game changer on the pitch as a handful of our players seemed to drift in and out of obscurity. At this point our measured approach was beginning to look complacent. We were struggling to hold onto the ball and things were about to get worse. Alese went down in our box. The replay showed he'd over extended and crumpled. In a ungentlemanly fashion Stoke played on but Burger scored 3 points to wigan. I'm no lipreader but from my count he also told Aouchiche to F off at least 8 times. RLB was forced to make his subs on the 60 minute mark, bring on Zak Johnson to replace Alese and Aleksic for Rigg.
The change worked and Aleksic opened his account for the club with a walk in the park type goal. Adil and Aleksic linked up well down the middle and gave the fans summat to shout about. Game on. We finally had a some fire in our feet. Milan seems to have a lot on energy and pace about him and his influence was immediate. Stoke looked sad again. Good.
A stunning text book ball from Captain Dan to Eli shooting wide again. Deep breaths. Zak Johnson looked strong as Stoke players bounced off him. I was beginning to look like we'd all had snuck some Red bull into our water bottles. Moron dragged Neil down 40 yards out and then kicked the ball away. Two bookable offences? apparently the ref wasn't that arsed. There goalie decided his beard was too heavy had a bit of a sit down. This gave the players a chance to skip over to the dugouts and look at their etcher sketches.
Trai tried his best down the right. We'd begun to switch play and attack beautifully. Milan had now had 3 shots on target. Operation 'run your socks off' was in full swing. Then there goalie decided to have another lie down. Samed was introduced to the field to a grateful Harrison Jones, who'd put in a promising shift. Amongst Samed's stats online his 'shot type' is colourfully listed as 'other body parts'. Ooer. LO9 then went on one of his trade mark adventures and made it all the way to the box before the final shot from Connolly was straight at the keeper. On the 89th minute were beginning to play like we wanted it to go to penalties about as much as we wanted to go to Stoke again. Connolly brough the ball down excellently on the egde of the box and forced another save from the keeper. 7 minutes of added time to get our frozen fans out their seats. In more ways than one. With our foot firmly to the floor Stoke had begun to look like they’d prefer penalties, putting every player behind the ball.
We'd looked strong in the closing moments but could we keep it up in extra time? Our freezing fans would have to endure another 30 minutes. And I'd have to wait for my tea!
The first half of extra time was end to end stuff, with us seeing slightly more chances Aouchiche missed a sitter after a promising Mayenda run. Eli didn't all the hard work again only for Connolly to miss. Aaron then moved over to the right and made a great run into the box but no one was quick enough to receive his pass. Half time? Extra half time? Whatever its called we stopped playing for a bit. Rusyn came on for Hjelde for some reason. Given how high our defensive wide men were playing that could work. It'd certainly confuse them.
Extra second half began. Come on Sunderland. They found there way into our box but our man at the backs eyes were as red as the sun and he dealt with it easily. We were now playing 244. Very French. Trey Samuel-Ogunsuy came on. Great another hard name to learn to spell. A Dan Neil special zipped just over the head of an inviting run and out of play. We were linking up well. Then it happened Stoke beat us on the break and it was all over. What a waste. 8 mins left on the clock and Stoke were smiling again. Yuck. We didn't give up. Connolly was playing his socks, he found is way to the edge of their box, played it wide and result cross found Samed but in was headed narrowly wide. one last corner from us amounted to nowt and it was game over.
We'd had some great passages of play but it was too little too late. Less than half our shot were on target. We've really got to fix that. RLB has already told the recruitment team what he wants. Hopefully they'll choose wisely. It was brilliant to see some of the new players link up well. The 12 Stoke fans could now return home once again thinking their a decent team. Sad. There'd been some decent performances and the fresh blood had shown what they could do...and couldn't do. Right, I'm ready for my tea.
Final thought - Has Trai Hume ever tried to hum?
Keep the faith.
GPD
