| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. 08:02 - Feb 12 with 65699 views | Gruntfuttock |
Never started one before...never even thought of it. But the new QPR calls for a new thread starter...I'm going 2-1 to us (not exactly a massacre, but it'll do) |  | | |  |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 11:58 - Feb 15 with 1794 views | joe90 |
By no means our worst performance, but at this stage it's little consolation. The bottom line is we need to win. The more games we lose the greater the pressure becomes and this team doesn't have the composure or mentality to take that pressure.
The first half of the game was open and we had our best opportunities to score, but we didn't take them. Second half Stoke sat further and further back. We needed some composure and a descent delivery, we couldn't manage either. We deserved to lose. It's so frustrating to watch and there are no positives to take away. It's irrelevant what people think of Stoke, they scored, they won. |  | | |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 12:07 - Feb 15 with 1772 views | Hooping_Mad |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 08:31 - Feb 15 by stevec |
There is definitely a mental weakness in this team has been for a long time.
However, we have conceded so many points from corners, look at this team sheet…
In my view there’s only one player who can defend headers and have the physical know how at corners and that’s Cook. That is criminal.
You could make a case for JCS but he’s ok one on one in the air, not so good in a crowded goalmouth.
In my opinion we need to go Dunne, Cook, JCS, Fox as the back four in away games, possibly home games as well until we are able to secure our own goal and the six in front of them try to nick a goal. It’s soul destroying for any team to continually get done at dead balls, Marti has to wake up to this or we are down. |
JCS could not head the ball last night, I think 2 or 3 just went straight up in the air. |  |
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| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 12:30 - Feb 15 with 1706 views | hubble |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 14:04 - Feb 12 by Hoopstar |
This has been a brave call to start a match thread against someone on the run Spaceman is.
If we lose, we will be launching the permanent banning petition I'd say! |
I knew this thread was doomed.
Never change a match thread starter on a streak! |  |
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| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 12:32 - Feb 15 with 1696 views | BAWHoops |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 11:23 - Feb 15 by BazzaInTheLoft |
Opinions eh.
Thought we were bad but far from the worst performance I’ve ever seen. We were bright in patches just ineffective.
I’d also offer some credit to Stoke‘s defending which I thought won them the game. Last ten minutes we had six attackers on the pitch and they repelled everything. |
Sort of meant considering what the game meant, the opportunity that was there, the form we were in, the form they were in and we served up that.
Can't turn around and say Stoke played well because they didn't. They just sort of stood there, terrified, and we couldn't capitalise.
The second half was atrocious. We didn't have a shot! (I'm not counting Cannon's that went miles over the bar).
As for their defenders repelling everything, we barely tested them IMO. Our crossing was abject and build up play painfully slow
It was awful |  |
| http://blogandwhitehoops.wordpress.com/ |
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| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 12:34 - Feb 15 with 1685 views | Rs_Holy |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 23:56 - Feb 14 by Northernr |
That was... that was quite something. To lose to a team that bad, playing that badly, with a crowd against them... you have to try really hard to accomplish that. |
Got the impression (watching on my laptop) that the Sjoke fans were desperate to boo the team in the 2nd half but couldn't because they were actually winning the game? ... came across as a strange old atmosphere last night. |  | | |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 12:35 - Feb 15 with 1680 views | CamberleyR |
Sorry Gruntfuttock, it's with regret, but...
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| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 12:37 - Feb 15 with 1674 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 12:35 - Feb 15 by CamberleyR |
Sorry Gruntfuttock, it's with regret, but...
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Should have gone with my shitty pottery puns thread. |  | | |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 13:00 - Feb 15 with 1599 views | R_from_afar |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 08:36 - Feb 15 by traininvain |
Agree we dominated early on and didn’t take our chances or create more opportunities with the possession we had in the final third. It felt like a real missed opportunity at the time and if we know that as fans, I’m sure it’s in the back of the minds of the players. The consistent problem with this group is they’re mentally fragile so the goal before half time was always likely to prove terminal.
The lack of composure in the second half, when we had most of the ball, is a byproduct of mental fragility. You could see the confidence draining from our players minute by minute. I suppose that’s all connected to the position we’re in and the losing mentality that’s been allowed to seep into the club over the past couple of years. |
Mentally fragile and, sigh, very dim. They really do lack in-game intelligence. I genuinely believe they can't think for themselves.
Then there's the inability to do the basics - still! Our set pieces  I shudder to think how far down the football pyramid you have to go to find a team as poor as us. That's on Marti and the players. Do the players have no self-respect? Wait, I think I can answer my own question. And to think that struggling teams usually find a way of deriving the maximum benefit from set pieces. Not us, oh no!
The way we seem to think that simply keeping the ball will lead to a goal. We spent long periods attacking but we didn't have the pace and control to get in behind them or the guile to sneak through their massed defence. They sat back in their defensive block while we passed it around slowly, occasionally crossing only for Stoke to easily head the ball away.
Artless, brainless, gutless.
I'm not sure we are down but we are soooo close to it now.
What I am certain of is:
- We will have at least one more surprise result where we pull ourselves together for a game against a much better team, and somehow steal a draw or even a win. The corpse will twitch at least once, just to get our hopes up for a few moments, prior to them being dashed, as per usual. I honestly feel this squad thinks it's far better than it is, it still thinks it's early October 2022, we are top and sweeping all before us. Newsflash! 
- We will tank in at least one relegation six pointer. The squad seems to think grinding out a win against a fellow straggler is beneath them. I simply cannot see us beating Rotherham, we'll draw at best.
The pain goes on and on endlessly... |  |
| "Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1." |
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| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 13:34 - Feb 15 with 1552 views | TheChef |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 08:31 - Feb 15 by stevec |
There is definitely a mental weakness in this team has been for a long time.
However, we have conceded so many points from corners, look at this team sheet…
In my view there’s only one player who can defend headers and have the physical know how at corners and that’s Cook. That is criminal.
You could make a case for JCS but he’s ok one on one in the air, not so good in a crowded goalmouth.
In my opinion we need to go Dunne, Cook, JCS, Fox as the back four in away games, possibly home games as well until we are able to secure our own goal and the six in front of them try to nick a goal. It’s soul destroying for any team to continually get done at dead balls, Marti has to wake up to this or we are down. |
I'd have started Field ahead of Colback last night for a start.
Stoke's DNA is a bunch of big physical lumps, and we matched that with the Diddymen. |  |
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| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 13:42 - Feb 15 with 1524 views | Match82 |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 12:37 - Feb 15 by BazzaInTheLoft |
Should have gone with my shitty pottery puns thread. |
They weren't all they were cracked up to be |  | | |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 14:02 - Feb 15 with 1498 views | mart_Goblin |
Apologies if I have missed it but what sort of greeting did our fans give the team as they sloped passed them after one of the most gutless displays I can remember in near 50 years of watching us?
I hope they went bonkers at them because that’s what they deserved |  | | |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 15:17 - Feb 15 with 1424 views | Northernr |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 14:02 - Feb 15 by mart_Goblin |
Apologies if I have missed it but what sort of greeting did our fans give the team as they sloped passed them after one of the most gutless displays I can remember in near 50 years of watching us?
I hope they went bonkers at them because that’s what they deserved |
It was pretty mooted. Few boos. Few of the usual bits of abuse. But, to be frank, nobody stuck around long enough to find out. They all scarpered down the tunnel double lively, with a lot more urgency than they'd shown during the game. Steve Cook a sort of apology gesture, Cifuentes making some sort of pointing gesture I didn't quite understand. But they were all out of there within 30 seconds of the final whistle, nobody in the mood to stick around. |  | | |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 17:25 - Feb 15 with 1309 views | derbyhoop |
Can anybody point to a Rangers player who had a decent game? If anybody gets more than 5 Clive has gone soft. |  |
| "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky |
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| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 18:23 - Feb 15 with 1214 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 17:25 - Feb 15 by derbyhoop |
Can anybody point to a Rangers player who had a decent game? If anybody gets more than 5 Clive has gone soft. |
JCS and Cook for me, goal aside. | | | |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 18:28 - Feb 15 with 1193 views | Northernr |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 17:25 - Feb 15 by derbyhoop |
Can anybody point to a Rangers player who had a decent game? If anybody gets more than 5 Clive has gone soft. |
Let me kill that suspense straight away - nobody has.
Only 2 players in the whole game on more than a 5 and neither of them are ours. | | | |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 22:12 - Feb 15 with 1028 views | davman |
| St. Valentines Day Massacre?...Stoke City away match thread. on 18:28 - Feb 15 by Northernr |
Let me kill that suspense straight away - nobody has.
Only 2 players in the whole game on more than a 5 and neither of them are ours. |
Did lil' Kenny trouble the scorer? Not sure he should on that showing... |  |
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