DAVIES BUCKS THE TREND WITH HIS HEROICS FROM THE SPOT
A PENALTY save is sometimes celebrated by supporters with the same enthusiasm as a goal.
The one keeper Adam Davies made to stop Charlie Austin and help Stoke City beat QPR was like celebrating an unexpected worldie.
It was a near-unique mix of complete joy and complete shock as 1,166 Stoke supporters in the upper tier down the other end couldn’t believe what they had seen. Davies went the right way fractionally before Austin connected and saved the ball right down in the bottom corner, even if it wasn’t spectacularly well hit.
Joe Bursik had saved a penalty earlier this season but at that point Stoke were already trailing 3-0 in injurytime at Fulham so there wasn’t too much to cheer in that particular game.
The last save in a league match before then? Well, a contested Leighton Baines penalty at Everton in August 2016 was pushed onto the post by Shay Given - then hit the back of Given’s head and went in.
In April 2014, Asmir Begovic saved Frank Lampard’s effort at Chelsea and Lampard stroked in the rebound. They are on a list of 37 in the league since Thomas Sorensen saved a Loic Remy penalty at Newcastle United on Martin Atkinson’s day of shame, Boxing Day 2013. Remy scored within a couple of minutes and Newcastle United beat nine-man Stoke 5-1.
Stoke conceded four penalties last season and all four were scored.
There were five awarded and five that went in the previous campaign, four and four in 2018/19, five and five in the relegation season.
Jack Butland did pull off a show-stopping shoot out save against playmaker Eden Hazard as Stoke beat Chelsea in the League Cup in late 2015.
Davies saved two in a shootout win over Blackpool in the Carabao Cup last August too.
The last league penalty that was saved and helped Stoke take a point was way back on December 12, 2009 when Sorensen stopped Hugo Rodallega’s in the last minute of a 2-2 home draw with Wigan.
The last in a league win was a few weeks previously, November 22, 2009 - Sorensen stopping Kevin Prince-boateng in a 1-0 home victory over Portsmouth.