FOR TOOTHLESS STOKE
Bristol City were going to push and press hard and they could not afford any mistakes.
Especially mistakes like the one made by Sam Clucas as he played a terrible back pass from the leftback slot that went straight past Adam Davies and towards the back post.
It took quick reactions from the keeper to stop Wells, force him wide and then recover to smother the follow up from Tommy Rowe.
Weimann should have scored too when Wells got in down the inside left and pulled back low for Weimann to miscontrol then sky from eight yards.
It wasn’t just the forwards causing problems. A half-cleared corner only found Jack Hunt on the edge of the box abd he took one touch and then thundered a shot just over the angle of bar and post.
At least Stoke had Brown, who offered a threat with his pace on the counter and looked dangerous feeding off Sam Vokes’s knock downs. One of those gave him the time and space to try his luck from 25 yards, with a shot that dipped just over.
One of Vokes’s outstretched boots when trying to press on the edge of the Bristol City box inadvertently set up a quick break for the visitors which ended with Weimann feeding Chris Martin to side-foot only narrowly wide.
Stoke still had five corners in the first half and it needed two defenders either side of Brown to cut out Clucas’s dinked cross.
But Bristol City were worth their lead when it came just before the break. Martin somehow held off two defenders to stretch and reach a cross from the right, setting up Wells to steer home on the swivel from inside the six-yard box.
O’neill did not look impressed and made his first change at the interval, swapping Sam Vokes for Steven Fletcher.
It almost paid immediate dividends as Nick Powell’s cross from the left whistled just over Fletcher’s head, lurking at the back post. A couple of inches lower and Stoke would have been level.
Stoke did spend more time in the opposition half but for all their huffing and puffing they rarely broke into the final third. They took the option to go direct to Fletcher but nothing seemed to run or fall smoothly.
The manager threw on Tyrese Campbell too with 25 minutes to go but Stoke couldn’t find any momentum going forward and weren’t able to muster a shot on target.
The closest they came in the second half was from a Clucas corner met by Danny Batth, who couldn’t get over the ball and sent it spinning into the Boothen End.
Tommy Smith linked up with Fletcher as well and had a shot deflected just over the bar.
Bristol City sat further back and were keen to take their time at any opportunity – at one point at a free-kick Sam Clucas had to remind referee Oliver Langford that he wasn’t supposed to allow a drinks break.
But Stoke still wobbled when they were pushed and Batth was mugged in the 89th minute by Weimann, who played a one-two with Antoine Semenyo and was unmarked to stroke the second past Davies from 12 yards.
There were six minutes of injury time but the board could have said 60 and not many would have backed Stoke to score. This was one to forget.