‘THERE’S NO DOUBT WE’RE AN AVERAGE CHAMPIONSHIP SIDE’

THE sunlit uplands of ST4 weren’t exactly filled with excitement and fervour in a tepid, tame end of season game against Coventry.

In fact, Saturday’s game seemed to sum up the season neatly.

Some aneamic football, shooting ourselves in the foot at either end if the pitch, a lack of dynamism in midfield and an eventual draw to see us end up slapbang in the doldrums of mid-table.

In fact we have ended up in 14th position in the Championship again, after finishing in exactly the same spot last time around, following on from 15th the season before that and 16th a year earlier.

Hardly, progress, although you could argue there’s a level of consistency to that series of finishes which is clear for everyone to see: we are now a bang average Championship club. There’s no getting away from that.

Looking to the future, City need something or someone to drag us out if that malaise and excitement supporters again.

The connection we saw between the visiting fans, their players and particularly their manager was also incredibly evident.

We haven’t had that for five or six years now.

There were moments in this campaign when it almost returned. Thinking back to the West Brom and Fulham home games, the latter notable for Baker and Wrightphillips

getting fans off their seats.

But all too often this season our bums have been firmly ensconced in a sitting position, arms folded, expression on face grimly set to ‘here we go again’. Stoke need a Stan Matthews, a Mark Stein, a Ricardo Fuller, a Bojantype signing to generate positivity and passion again in the stands, because we are stuck in a never ending circle of lethargy and underachievement at this moment in time.

Is Michael O’neill the right man to oversee this change give that he has already had two full seasons plus more than half his initial one to regenerate?

To a degree that’s a moot discussion because it seems that the owners will be giving him that opportunity. Am I confident it will work out? Not surprisingly, I’m about 50/50 on it.

The summer break is short, thankfully, so we can soon concentrate on what we can only hope will be a far better, more interesting, engaging and exciting Stoke City team and season for 2022/23. All that remains for 2021/22 is for every Stokie to breathe a heavy sigh of relief and say thank heavens that season is over.

Enjoy the summer folks!