POTTERS END THEIR BARREN SPELL ON ROAD
NICK Powell, Steven Fletcher and yet another clean sheet combined to help Stoke City to a long-awaited away win. Stoke celebrated their first win on the road since beating Wycombe in early December as they eased to a 2-0 victory at Bristol City.
Powell cracked in the opener from close range in the 25th minute and Stoke remained the better side in a pretty scrappy contest until Fletcher added a second with a beautiful free-kick in the 62nd minute.
“You can only beat what’s in front of you and we did more than enough to win comfortably,” said Denis Smith, watching on for Radio Stoke. “You want to come down here and be excited by both sides… and I can’t, but I wanted to see the win. We’ve won 1-0, 2-0 and, wait til Monday, let’s hope for 3-0.”
Harry Souttar passed a fitness test to make the starting XI, which meant that Michael O’neill only needed to make one change, despite plenty of injuries.
Fletcher replaced Joe Allen (hamstring and calf) and there was a slight
shuffle to the formation with Powell used in an attacking midfield role, even if that didn’t necessarily dampen his threat.
It was a very young bench, however, with 18-year-old Connor Taylor, from Stafford, stepping up for the
first time. Dan Malone, aged 18; Blondy Nna Noukeu, Keiran Coates and Christian Norton, aged 19; Rabbi
Matondo, aged 20; and Josh Tymon, aged 21, made for one of the young match day squads in at least 15 years, even if 31-year-olds Sam Vokes and James Mcclean were also subs.
It seemed like it was going
to be another tight affair when a goal would probably be the winner – only three points and three places separated the teams – and Stoke would have to repeat their trick against Derby to make sure it went their way.
It was never really in doubt after mid-way through the first half.
A brilliant long dink of a pass from the back from Souttar dropped perfectly for Jacob Brown in behind down the inside right channel – and Brown did well to make the most of it.
He got across his man and got the ball in the right area for Powell to have two bites of the cherry and smack in the opener.
That makes it 12 league goals for the season for Powell, the most for Stoke since Liam Lawrence and Ricardo Fuller bagged 15 in the 2007/08 promotion year.
Brown was constantly trying to play on the shoulder, looking more confident after that goal turn against Derby before the international break – and, perhaps, playing in a front two, which O’neill thinks could be his best position.
They didn’t always make the most of their chances when they got into the final third, however, which has been a common complaint since the turn of the year.
Brown and Tommy Smith both had openings down the right but were cut short either by a good tackle or a poor cross – but they helped Stoke stay on the front foot.
In fact, the visitors had 59 per cent of possession that
first half while dealing pretty comfortably with a couple of corners that swirled in the wind.
There was only one real sighter. Stoke were a little loose on the right and Han-noah Massengo was quick to switch play with a sweeping pass that dropped Antoine Semenyo behind Danny Batth just right of centre. Adam Davies was out quickly and saved well.
But Stoke’s catalogue of clean sheets this season hasn’t just been down to reaction stops, it’s been down to stopping shots in the first place.
James Chester did give the ball away a couple of times with some loose passes out of defence but him, Souttar and Batth made for a pretty tricky wall to get past at this level. Kasey Palmer managed it with a flashed cross early in the second half but Nahki Wells couldn’t get a touch to take advantage.
Following a Brown pirouette to get Stoke to the by-line at the other end – he hit his cross into a defender after a brilliant turn – Bristol City also had a couple more corners to try to force an equaliser.
But Stoke dealt with it quite comfortably and took advantage when they got the chance to get down the other end.
Brown won a free-kick on the edge of the area, just right of centre, and immediately Fletcher’s eyes lit up. Teammates stood in front of the ball to block the wall’s view and Fletcher tapped it to one side and – as the wall didn’t charge – pinged it into the top right corner.
It was a Shaqiri-style dead ball and Fletcher’s welldeserved ninth of the season. If only he had been firing on all cylinders all the way through.
Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson rolled the dice to try to make something happen but Stoke were happy enough going through the closing stages as O’neill took the chance to rest up Powell and Fletcher ahead of Monday’s clash with Millwall.
There was another run out too for Christian Norton, who made his first team debut last month and picked up his first Wales under-21s cap last week.
It all came against the backdrop of fake crowd noise pumped over the Ashton Gate Tannoy system which ironically – with big cheers at the wrong times – served to highlight the absence of fans. Bristol City were actually wearing a white third strip with 5,000 season ticket holders’ names on in small print – and they would have no doubt sounded a lot less happy if they had actually been in the stadium.
Stoke have back to back wins and now the challenge is to make it three for the first time since 2016.