No, it hasn’t been that long since we won a game.
Instead I am fairly certain that, for the first time since that day (when we lost 6-3 to Crystal Palace) both our central midfield players scored in the same match.
I was musing on this yesterday afternoon while dissecting it in the way proper saddos do with a couple of mates and my brother and my mate asked the question.
If its correct and that say seven and a half years ago was indeed the last time both midfield men notched – and to be honest, I am not certain that Clive Clarke, who scored that day along with John Eustace – was actually playing in the middle. He may have been on the left, in which case it is my belief that you have to go back to Boxing Day 2002 when Petur Martiensson scored at Bradford City.
Whichever way round you look at it, and whether I am right or wrong, it is a pretty staggering statistic. Especially when you consider that in that time we have largely been successful.
The reasons for it of course are many and varied. Firstly, since Graham Kavanagh slithered off to Cardiff in 2001 we haven’t had what you might call a goalscoring midfield man in the ranks.
Secondly, we don’t shoot really from distance. Its very rare to see the type of goals Glen Whelan usually scores in a Stoke game and thirdly you almost never see a Stoke midfield man breaking through past the forwards. Dean Whitehead does it occasionally, at Bolton last season for example, at Blackburn the year before and of course, who can forget the sight of Salif Diao rampaging down Fratton Park before smashing the winner in at Portsmouth?
It is worth pointing out that we have scored plenty of goals from other areas in that time. Liam Lawrence got 15 from the wing the year we went up and obviously the defence has weighed in with plenty too – although not this season.
In fairness too, we generally don’t play that way, it is difficult to see exactly how we can incorporate a “David Platt” type player into our line up. But I wish we would shoot more from distance. You saw what happened yesterday. Whelan has a bang, two deflections later and its 2-0.
As it is you suspect that it might very well be 2018 before it happens again – and as long as we are in the Premier League still, then I don’t suppose anyone will mind too much. But it would be nice to see that dimension added to our play.
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