POTTERS ON THE BRINK... ...OF SAFETY!
MICHAEL O’neill is refusing to celebrate Stoke City reaching the 50-point barrier – even if that is enough to keep the club in the Championship.
A hard-earned draw at Bristol City has taken Stoke back up to 17th and five points clear of the relegation zone with just two games remaining.
But O’neill makes the case that it is still not certain – and that a club like Stoke should not be happy with the 2019/20 season.
He said: “It goes a long way towards it, but it doesn’t make it mathematically certain so until that’s the case we’ll not get carried away. It was a very valuable point and I think that’s the least we deserved from the game.
“It was hard earned, a tough game against a very good team, but I thought for large portions we were the dominant team.”
He added: “We won’t be celebrating staying in the league regardless. That’s not something to celebrate. We’ll be relieved to stay in the league and then we can get to work to make sure this is something that doesn’t happen going forwards.
“For a club of our size, for the investment that the owners made in the team under previous managers, we shouldn’t be finding ourselves in this position.
“But we’ve had a difficult season, a difficult two seasons in the Championship, so we have to address that and make sure that what’s happened isn’t repeated.”
Stoke went behind at Bristol City on the stroke of half-time when Filip Benkovic had space to bend in a shot following a corner – but equalised through Danny Batth’s diving header, while Batth and Nick Powell also struck the woodwork.
O’neill said: “It’s never easy when you go behind and we went behind with the last kick of the first half from the second phase of a corner. That’s always difficult. You come in having played so well in the first half and suddenly you’re behind.
“How we reacted to that, how we played from the start of the second half was excellent. Not to let our heads drop, not to let the intensity of our play drop.”
It was Batth’s second goal in two games and fourth of the season.
“Danny was terrific again today in both boxes,” said O’neill.
“He defends for his life when you need him and equally in the opposition box he’s a great threat. He had another header which was pushed on to the angle of post and bar so he was unlucky not to have two goals, although that was a great save from the goalkeeper.
“But it was a terrific performance and we can’t ask any more of the players. They’re being asked to play every three days, the games are very demanding.
“Overall we’re pleased with a point but we still have work to do.”
Nick Powell and Sam Clucas will be assessed before the clash with Brentford on Saturday after withdrawing through injury in the secondhalf.
O’neill added: “I look at the balance of the first half; Lee Gregory was in one-on-one with the goalkeeper and we must have easily had 10 balls, 10 really good opportunities, crossing opportunities and to be fair to them they defended that well but we should have maybe got across people better in the box.
“For 80 minutes I thought we were terrific in terms of level of performance and level of our play and just towards the end, I think a combination of Sunday when they played Saturday, that was a factor, and not being able to change the team very much. They were able to bring a little bit of freshness and pace off the bench which we had to deal with.
“But overall I think it would have been very harsh if we hadn’t taken something from the game.”