I went back 15 years at Leeds!

IT WAS a real eye-opener to be back in the Championship with Stoke. The last time I had played at that level was for Norwich in a game at Millwall in December 2003, and in some ways it felt like I had gone back 15 years at Elland Road. I don’t want that to come across as a criticism because it isn’t; I was blown away, really, by the intensity and the physicality of the Championship. I only came on for the last 15 minutes but I loved the aggression of the contest against Leeds. The Premier League has certainly become more refined of late and referees clamp down on anything and everything. We have become much more European in the way the game at the highest level is played and the match officials are quick to clamp down and offer protection. But that wasn’t the case last week. A couple of the tackles that I saw go in, for instance, would definitely have been red cards in the top division, but they were only punished with fouls. And a few challenges I expected to end up with bookings weren’t even penalised. This was the British style that I had grown up with and it honestly wasn’t a problem. I’m going to enjoy it! But it was a valuable lesson of what the season is going to be like and we need to prepare for more afternoons of this nature. Elland Road was bouncing and the atmosphere was brilliant. Full credit to Leeds because they didn’t let us settle for a minute. They were a young team who charged around and nobody offered complaints about the result. We deserved to lose. Now we know what is ahead of us we must adapt quickly. We can’t let a defeat like that happen again.