Butland blunder costly for Stoke
Faced with probably the toughest runin of any team in the Premier League relegation battle, Stoke can ill afford to throw away a single point, so it was particularly frustrating for manager Paul Lambert to see two slip away after a performance that probably deserved all three, not least given the identity of the player at fault for Leicester City’s second-half equaliser.
Yet Lambert would not attach any blame to England goalkeeper Jack Butland, whose freakish own goal denied his side an opportunity to climb out of the bottom three that had seemed to be in their grasp.
With Stoke leading through Xherdan Shaqiri’s goal late in the first half and Leicester rarely having threatened to score themselves, Butland allowed a cross from Leicester’s Marc Albrighton, to which Jamie Vardy had tried unsuccessfully to get a touch, to wind up in the net anyway, bouncing in off his chest after what can only be assumed to have been a calamitous misjudgment, or a simple case of taking his eye off the ball.
“It is frustrating not to win the game but I attach no blame to Jack,” Lambert said, immediately pointing to the saves he made as the home side tried to turn the mistake to their advantage in the closing stages. “He is a brilliant keeper, best in Britain. He will make mistakes, as all footballers do. But the only disappointment for me is that he is not Scottish. He has made a mistake but then has produced some outstanding saves. The one he made to his right [from Riyad Mahrez] was terrific.”
Lambert believed his side could have been two or three goals up before Butland’s horror moment, but the uncomfortable truth is that they remain in the bottom three and in their 10 remaining matches face six of the teams in the top nine.
Vardy had been virtually anonymous for Leicester, and it was not until late in the game that Mahrez showed much of the quality for which Manchester City were supposedly ready to pay a handsome fee in January, even if it did fall short of his club’s inflated valuation.
The Algerian was starting a Premier League game for the first time since Leicester’s latest refusal to budge sparked a strop that saw him fail even to train for a couple of weeks, let alone make himself available for selection.
Last week, he convened a meeting with the senior squad in a bid to mend bridges, although one suspects that he will need to offer more than words to convince them of his commitment to the cause.
Not that anyone in a blue shirt noticeably outshone him, and once Stoke had their noses in front they looked comfortable until the moment Leicester equalised.
Their goal, a minute before half- time, reflected which side had looked the hungrier. Joe Allen, booked early but still battling for every ball, took possession away from Wilfred Ndidi in midfield, found a willing runner to feed in Shaqiri, who rushed to the edge of the home box without a serious challenge in his path and fired low and true across goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and into the right-hand corner of the net.
Leicester coach Claude Puel lamented that there was not enough intensity in his side’s play for much of the contest. It was only after Butland’s error that they found any real energy, and it was at least to the credit of the man who will hope to be England’s No1 in Russia at this summer’s World Cup that he did make some amends.
He produced an acrobatic leap to deny a curling left-footer from Mahrez, then smothered the ball at the winger’s feet as he went through one on one, in between pushing a shot from Harry Maguire on to a post.
However, at a stage in the season when every point is vital, the damage had been done.