NIGHT FOR THE POTTERS
but players need a home and I want to see the younger players here really pushing to get into our starting XI as opposed to possibly looking over the fence thinking there’s something better on loan. This is the best option for them and it’s up to them to take it.”
This, however, was a tough opportunity. Nathan Collins was up against Wolves new £35m signing Fabio Silva, making his debut, for example, while Josh Tymon, slotting into the left of a three-man central midfield, had to keep one eye on the marauding Adama Traore.
And it quickly turned into a game of attack v defence. Stoke’s 3-5-2 was certainly more like a 5-3-2 and at times an 8-0-2, with even Vokes and Lee Gregory spending a good chunk of their time in their own half.
But Stoke defended manfully. Martins Indi, captain against the manager who ostracised him at Porto, Nuno Espirito Santo, was the loudest man in the Midlands as he barked out orders and organised the massed ranks around him.
And the visitors did keep the Wolves from the door, so to speak, in an opening half when they had just 30 per cent of possession. Silva’s only effort was a spin and high spoon into the stand, when Traore did earn space to pull the trigger following a blundering dance across the area, Souttar was charging it down like a man possessed.
Silva’s frustration about close attention from Collins, even off the ball, was summed up when the game had to be stopped following a high-pitched scream that filled the empty stadium. Referee Simon Hooper looked puzzled and O’neill gestured to the fourth official Kevin Friend it had been the kind of coming together that 18-year-old Silva should probably expect in English football.
Leander Dendoncker came closest when he arrived late in the box and glanced a header just wide following a cross from Ruben Neves.
Yet Stoke, in fact, had a couple of decent openings themselves when they broke with threat on the counter. Tommy Smith picked out Sam Vokes a couple of times, the first a header that fell flat and the second nudged just over. And, at the start of the second half, they managed to create a little spell of pressure themselves.
Set pieces still seemed like the best chance and Souttar spanked a header on target, but too close to John Ruddy, from a Jordan Thompson corner.
Stoke kept it up and Tymon pulled out a lovely low cross for Steven Fletcher, who had just come off the bench, to have a shot deflected narrowly over.
Wolves threw on Raul Jimenez in an effort to avoid penalties and almost immediately had their best opening.
Silva should have buried from close range when he found space when a Neto free-kick was dinked into the box… but it was a horror miss.
And Stoke made him pay. Fletcher and Mcclean combined to find Brown in space in the inside left channel with 87 minutes on the clock. He paced in on goal and smashed a shot past Ruddy, who probably should have done better.
But Stoke won’t care about that. They’re into the last 32.