Match Day Stoke v Bournemouth, Saturday 21st October 15:00

[SALTIRE]

Match chat.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Can he do it on a wet and windy night in Stoke? As the saying goes. It maybe an afternoon game, but the weather looks absolutely atrocious. Not likely to be conducive to a good game, but then neither side is currently playing their best stuff anyway judging by recent results. Some pressure is seeping onto Hughes, and whilst Howe will never get much pressure from us, there will be definite worries if we continue 'playing well' (ish) but ultimately losing more games.

It's late October and we're still not much closer to being able to name our best formation or 11, which isn't ideal. Trying to get the most out of Lewis Cook and Jordon Ibe is important, as our two most in form 'creators' right now. Stanislas is working his way back to fitness but he always needs 10 games before he starts really firing. Defoe and King don't look like the partnership we hoped they would be, rather disjointed.

Not sure if it's logic or just blind optimism, but I do feel like we're due something falling our way given the performances compared with results. And I don't think it'll take much for things to start clicking in the goals scored column. But Stoke away isn't the ideal place to be going looking for something to fall into your lap.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

That was the definition of a nervy tight hanging, clinging on win.

Stoke were just slightly worse than us. They out us under all sorts of pressure second half, but we held out.

First half we did the damage because their defence is lumbering and slow. Even Surman strokes one in

We needed that.