ROMAINE PROVING TO BE THE MAIN MAN IN MIDDLE OF THE PARK
MICHAEL O’neill is enjoying seeing Romaine Sawyers settle into a key man at Stoke City. Sawyers made the winning goal for Stoke at Luton, breaking behind the defence to whip a first-time cross for Jacob Brown. The 30-year-old midfielder, on loan from West Bromwich Albion for the season, has become increasingly pivotal to Stoke’s play in possession. And O’neill said: “He’s a joy to watch when he’s on the ball.
“He plays passes that not many players in this league are capable of playing. He has a great disguise on his pass as well.
“I think he enjoys playing in there with Joe and Mario and Jordan and I think we’ve got a good blend in there as well.
“Early on we knew we’d have to get him up to speed a little bit because of his game time but he’s demonstrating all his quality now.”
Stoke have climbed to fifth in the Championship thanks to back-to-back wins at Blackpool and Luton. The division is massively tight and there is only six points between O’neill’s side and Reading all the way down in 16th after the opening 17 games of the season.
But there is a belief that Stoke’s performances have been worthy of a place in the play-off places and there is hope that they can keep it up.
O’neill said: “We’ve been around there most of the season and I think we’re there on merit at this minute in time.
“I feel that as a team we’ve developed a lot from where we were last year and we’re able to be in that position while Sam Clucas and Nick Powell are unavailable, Tyrese Campbell is still coming back from injury. “I think we’ll get stronger once those players come back as well.
“If we look at the points we’ve lost then I don’t think we have any doubt we deserve to be in the position we’re in.”
It is a lot different, too, from when O’neill first arrived two years ago. The manager was reminded of the turnaround on and off the pitch after inheriting a crisis.
He said: “The club was bottom of the league, six points from getting out of the bottom three, we had a bloated squad and an unrealistic wage bill for the Championship. Now we’ve got a younger squad, a much more realistic wage bill and a better team.”