Weekly review does highlight the huge impact O’neill has had on Stoke squad
LAST season Stoke lost all three of the equivalent matches they played in the last week by an aggregate of 3-10.
Those same games away at Derby and QPR, and against Blackburn at the bet365 Stadium have now yielded five points and a goal difference of 1-0.
If that isn’t a microcosm of the difference this season under Michael O’neill then I don’t know what is.
Remember, those defeats in 2019/20 were all under O’neill’s stewardship, but fairly early on in the grand scheme of things.
It was during that period when he was trying to haul the self-imploding juggernaut that was Stoke City Football Club around to a better, more efficient course.
Being hammered and conceding four goals at both Derby and Rangers gave MON food for deep thought. Now we are seeing the fruits of those labours.
Stoke City’s defence is nothing short of phenomenal. Under O’neill it has gone from conceding those 10 goals in those three games to letting in none.
And, in a wider context, keeping clean sheets in half of the matches played in 2020; 23 out of 46.
And incredibly City have now shut out the opposition in all but two away games this season in league and cup.
That is truly astonishing.
Not least because of the potentially debilitating and destabilising injury list that the manager has had to deal with.
It’s fair to point our that those have really bitten hard in the attack department, hence why City have notched up just the single goal scored in the three games in the last week.
But the defence has not been immune, as each of Batth, Chester, Souttar and Collins have been absent for one reason or another at some point this season.
And then there’s the goalkeeping crisis which seems to deepen day by day. With new signing Andy Lonergan falling ill with the flu on Saturday, Blondy Nna Noukeu was again in the bench behind the ever more impressive Joe Bursik.
With tonight’s League Cup quarterfinal looming large, as Bursik is cup tied, it’s quite possible that O’neill, boosted by the success of other young stars from the Academy, might feel perfectly comfortable to blood Blondy and rest many of the battle hardened warriors who have achieved so much in such trying circumstances this season.
Now, normally that might mean giving some other youngsters a chance in a high profile game alongside Nna Noukeu.
But the amazing thing is that the defence has been populated with young stars in this incredible turnaround.
Notably Harry Souttar, 22, and Nathan
Collins, 19, who have been so good that you forget their age and relative inexperience and just enjoy them snubbing out the Championship’s best attacks on a weekly basis.
On Saturday it was Adam Armstrong, 15 goals thus far this season, who was kept
quiet. Previously the likes of Ivan Toney, Colin Kazim-richards and Lucas Joao have been snuffed out.
It really has been an incredible story of trust on the one hand by the manager and delivery on the other by these young tyros.