Stoke City stayed up on the final day of the 2024/25 season. This season sees them going through the motions in April, nothing to play for. This campaign, Stoke have been in the top two for 43 days, the third-most of any club. A promising start, hampered by injuries to key players, but ultimately capital … Continue reading This has not been progress
The eye test: Southampton (A)
"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days, before you've actually left them" 3 wins in 3 and top of the league is one thing, but Stoke's win on the south coast was by far the most significant statement of the Mark Robins era so far. Under Pressure The … Continue reading The eye test: Southampton (A)
The eye test: Sheffield Wednesday (A)
Sambegou Bangoura and Mamady Sidibe were on the scoresheet last time Stoke won at Hillsborough, with Johan Boskamp's men lifting themselves to seventh in the table in November 2005. A lot has happened since then for both clubs, but it's taken The Owls to be in a particularly poor state for Stoke to break their … Continue reading The eye test: Sheffield Wednesday (A)
The eye test: Derby (H)
As Mark Robins emphasised post-game: "It's one game. It's one game. It's one game." Football is a game of emotion and it's only natural that the serotonin hit of Divin Mubama's 96th-minute header has fuelled a sense of optimism not seen since last year's opening day victory over Coventry, or the tonking of Rotherham the … Continue reading The eye test: Derby (H)
Dissociation Football
This season is my first without a season ticket since 2000/01. That season, I was eight years old, Stoke were in their third campaign on the spin in the third tier of English football and regularly played in front of crowds of 12,000. Port Vale beat us on our own turf. Icelandic manager Gudjon Thordarsson … Continue reading Dissociation Football
The Wizards of Drivel Podcast 