On the Beach Already??

ARSENAL 4 STOKE CITY FC 1

Certainly in the first half Stoke were all at sea, shipping four Arsenal goals to a solitary Fuller effort.



Two of the home team's goals had a touch of comedy about them.....James Beattie's sharp finish into his own net, would have been acclaimed if it had been atthe opposite end of the pitch. Rory Delap's header back to his keeper was woefully short,reaching Van Persie who finished with aplomb.

The other two goals: a Van Persie penalty following a Ryan Shawcross foul, and a Diaby free header.

Stoke opened with Simonsen between the posts, but at 3-0 in next to no time he was replaced by Sorensen.He went on to make a series of excellent saves,without which a cricket score threatened.

Ricardo Fuller was tripped by Denilson as he ran toward goal.The Jamaican striker netted the resultant penalty calmly.


The second half was a 0 - 0 draw.

So we finish the season on 45 points, in 12 th position in the Premership table, and with a great deal to be proud of from our first season at this exalted level.

BRILLIANT STOKE......GOOOO.....AAARRRRN!

Another 3 points In The Bag.........Arsenal Here We Come

STOKE CITY FC 2 WIGAN 0

After a pretty forgetable first half,for the most part playing into a strong gusting wind, Stoke came alive after the break.

Increasingly the Potters pushed a useful Wigan side back into their own half. Our first goal was typical Ricardo Fuller.Twisting and turning this way and that in the visitors penalty area,with the ball seemingly attached to his foot (as usual),wrongfooting two defenders,he worked sufficient space to be able to drill the ball into the net.His 10th goal of the season(68 mins).

The second goal came eight minutes later.Lawrence's pass found Etherington free on the right.He was challenged,the ball span up in the air as the keeper came in,reaching Beattie on the far post.He headed in with his usual aplomb.

Game over..........45 points 11th place in the table one game to play....who would have believed it at the beginning of the season??!!

Now Its Mathematically Certain......Another Year In the Prem!!!!!!!

HULL CITY FC 1 STOKE CITY FC 2

A fabulous result secured by goals from last year's promotion heroes.Ricardo Fuller on target from close range,4 minutes before the break giving us a deserved lead: Liam Lawrence following up on 73 minutes with what proved to be the winner, a long range scorcher .

Not to Be........Stoke City FC 0 West Ham United 1

One of those days........if we had played on for hours we were destined not to score.

Here Stoke came up against a younger faster more skilful team,which played some excellent football .Defensively they were solid,standing up well to our known threats, albeit sometimes with a degree of desperation.

For all that, in my estimation they were lucky to leave The Brit with all three points.They penetrated only twice in the whole game,the first of those occasions being Tristan's quality goal on 33 minutes from a freekick centrally placed on the edge of stoke's penalty area.The second came after the break as Stoke began to chase the game.In a one on one Thomas Sorensen came out on top.

To my mind there is now a pattern to the refereeing displays that we are seeing at The Brit. Stoke are clearly perceived as an overly physical team and are being 'reffed'as such,rightly or wrongly protection is being given to the opposition, with our players being penalised for perfectly legitimate challenges.There is a presumption that in goal mouth crowd scenes if the keeper drops the ball-which Green did few times today-then by definition they must have been fouled.

We had our chances,headers going wide,over the bar,or being cleared from the line.Shots were blocked or blazed over the bar.

So still on 39 points,with results going our way for the second week running.With another game gone we drop only one place in the table.WBA can no longer catch us.Middlesborough are eight points adrift with three games to play.Currently their goal difference is inferior to ours -26 to -17.A tall order.But we are still in reach for others........I'm sure Manager Pulis was impressing this on the players after the game,when they failed to emerge for the customary warm down.

So off to Hull........can we wrap it up there next week?