BROWN WILL ‘EMPTY THE TANK’ FOR STOKE
Striker’s work-rate is praised after netting winner against Derby at weekend
MICHAEL O’neill is delighted for Jacob Brown after the striker’s endeavour was rewarded with the match-winning moment against Derby County.
Brown met Nick Powell’s secondhalf cross to settle a game of little real goalmouth drama, bagging his fourth goal since a £2million signing for Stoke City from Barnsley last summer.
The 22-year-old had been selected in place of injured Steven Fletcher (head) and his manager knows, while there are things to work on, he can guarantee blood and sweat.
O’neill said: “Yeah, he works his socks off. He’s had a little bit of a difficult time in recent weeks and he knows his form has dipped a little bit and his confidence has dipped a little bit.
“But one thing you know with Jacob is that he’ll empty the tank for you. We knew today he would work their back three and that would allow Powell to come into the game a bit more and he could threaten in behind.
“He’s still a young player who has come into the game a bit later. There are things that he still needs to work on but his attitude is fantastic, his desire to work and desire to improve is fantastic. I was delighted to see him get that goal.”
It was Stoke’s 18th league clean sheet of the season – the most since 2004/05 – that made sure Brown’s header was the winner.
Derby, who are now only five points off the relegation zone, didn’t have a shot on target.
“That’s a positive,” said O’neill. “We said to the players at half-time that we’ve been here before, we’ve had seven 0-0 draws. We had to find a way to win the game today. We did it today and we have to improve in that respect given the number of clean sheets we’ve had.
“We’ve had three goalkeepers who have all contributed to those clean sheets. It was good for Adam (Davies) to come in and keep two clean sheets so that’s good.”
It always looked like a game that would be settled by one goal.
Said O’neill: “I thought in the first half we played well. We had a lot of control in the game. We didn’t create enough with that with our play. I thought our play from the back through the middle was very good but unfortunately we couldn’t open them up enough.
“I just felt we had to be patient. I thought our play in the second half was good and a great ball from Nick and a good finish from Jacob.”
Stoke now have a fortnight international break before heading to Bristol City. Davies, Joe Allen, Rhys Norringtondavies, Rabbi Matondo (Wales), James Mcclean (Ireland), Jordan Thompson (Northern Ireland), Joe Bursik (England under21s), Christian Norton and Eddie Jones (Wales under21s) are heading away after receiving callups.