POTTERS STRUGGLE TO
JOURNALISTS can be a miserable lot at the best of times, but particularly at this time of year, probably because of all the travelling, and hard work of course.
It might explain why Gary Rowett left the after-match press conference likening the atmosphere in there to a morgue.
And opposite number Paul Lambert, while in the room some 10 minutes earlier, thanked an Ipswich reporter for his optimism after being asked to comment on the daylight between Ipswich and the rest of the Championship.
It certainly seems to be a bit rich for all the long faces, among Stoke reporters and/or fans, after a pretty comfortable home victory, particularly when wins and points are like gold dust.
The league table has hardly looked better for Stoke as they continue to nibble their way through that annoying gap between themselves and the top six.
But those long faces were inspired by the way Stoke beat Ipswich which, at its kindest, could be described as unconvincing.
They certainly won’t get away with such a lethargic and uninspired offering at somewhere like Villa Park next weekend.
Long gone are the days
Stoke city
when we wondered if Stoke might sweep all before them, but against a seemingly doomed Ipswich everyone was entitled to anticipate better than this.
And such offerings are doing nothing for the cause of inspiring a half-decent atmosphere in a stadium where empty seats are mounting by the game and where home fans understandably require increasingly more effort to rouse themselves if the players can’t do it for them.
As one wag pointed out to Lambert in the press conference, had things worked out differently for him and for us, we’d have all been at Arsenal on Saturday.
We can’t carry that chip in our shoulder for ever and maybe the players, to be fair to them, have begun brushing it off long before the rest of us. Perhaps their biggest problem against Ipswich was the weight of expectation and/or a little complacency.
Either way, no-one could deny Stoke’s fortune at edging in front just seconds before the half-time whistle when Sam Clucas played in Tom Ince to slip a low shot between the keeper’s legs.
Indeed, Ipswich had come closest during the first 45 when a shot had struck the near post low down and then cannoned off the back of a diving Jack Butland for a corner.
Too often Stoke’s quality