Is it just me or is this Europe lark easier than we thought?
If you couldn’t believe how easy we beat Split , thought Thun would be a tough proposition, were worried about Kiev
It always appeared that Maccabi Tel Aviv were going to be the weakest team in the group but if we are honest, I wonder if Stoke City themselves expected a tougher test than what we got.
After the incident which saw Cameron Jerome hit the bar, my brother turned to me and said: “I’ll be disappointed if we don’t win this five.” Of course around 20 seconds later the ball was in the back of the net as Kenwyne Jones waltzed in almost unopposed to head home – although watching the key incidents again when I got home, Robert Huth’s part in the goal was very clever, have a look at what he does as the ball comes over – it did look on the cards.
Of course after that it was all about Cameron Jerome. We at Long Ball Football have a lot of time for our new striker, always have. I was pleased when we signed him and thought he would be perfect for us
And he didn’t disappoint. As one of our correspondents on Twitter said earlier “how fast was Jerome last night?” He took his goal well, he kept calm to make the third for the ever-impressive Ryan Shotton.
And then he did disappoint. It was a soft sending off of course it was, but for my money he can have no complaints. The first booking probably wouldn’t happen in the Premier League, but this ref was clearly not going to stand any dissent and Cameron had no business arguing about such an innocuous decision in a game we were strolling – then just minutes later to elbow a lad, however little contact there was, just gives the ref a decision to make, and he was always going to just that.
It was never really going to negatively affect the result – we probably would have beaten Tel Aviv with a 5 a side team (ok I am biased, that’s how I make my living!) so bad were the opposition – but it did affect the game.
After the break we treated the game as a training session and had to take our fun where we could. That comedy sending off being highly chucklesome) and I thought Wilson Palacios looked good when he came on, but ultimately the whole thing was a little unfulfilling.
So to answer the question that the headline posed: We learnt that we should qualify from this group. We learnt that we should win away in Israel, and with the results going the way they have elsewhere 10 points will probably be enough to see us through and we learnt not to backchat referees.
Stoke City in the last 32 of the Europa League…seriously, it’s going to happen. And, even back in July, who would have thought that?!
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