Stoke City delivered another Christmas present for the fans on Boxing Day against Birmingham as they came out 3-1 winners with Thompson, Gooch and Vidigal being the goal scorers for The Potters.
Before today, Stoke had not won in 9 games but are now four games unbeaten. As for Birmingham, they have had a seriously rocky start to the Wayne Rooney era as they have fell from 5th to 19th.
Stoke did not have the best start to the game as they looked like they could not string three passes together and struggled to produce anything in an attacking sense. Despite the slow start, The Potters broke the deadlock as Jordan Thompson unleashed a beautiful strike in the 12th minute into the bottom right after Gooch saw his effort cleared off the line.
After the breakthrough, Stoke began to take control of the game and the Potters nearly doubled their lead shortly after the goal as Ryan Mmaee played an enticing ball to Andre Vidigal, who found himself one on one with the keeper inside the box however, the winger missed his chance as he blazed the ball over the bar.
It didn’t take The Potters long to double their lead as Gooch slotted the ball through the Birmingham keeper’s legs into the net after Ryan Mmaee played him through with an audacious flick. Stoke went into the tunnel at half time two nil up after a dominant first half performance.
Stoke started off on the front foot in the second half as they had an early chance to extend their lead which was exceptionally taken by Andre Vidigal, as he cut the ball onto his left foot and chipped John Ruddy after some great build up play.
This ended Andre Vidigal’s dry streak much to the delight of the Stoke fans as they now have their fan favourite back. Stoke looked the far superior team throughout the second half period as they found spaces and exposed them in an attacking sense which was often missing under Alex Neil.
Birmingham did manage to claim a goal for themselves as Miyoshi tested Bonham from inside the box with Bonham palming the ball into Jay Stansfield’s path who lashed the ball into the back of the net. This goal would only turn out to be a consolation for Birmingham as the game finished 3-1 to Stoke and deservedly so.
Wayne Rooney’s job at Birmingham will now be at serious risk as he has only amounted 9 points out of a possible 39 and has won the least amount of championship points since his appointment.
Here’s what the Blue’s boss had to say:
“The performance is unrecognizable from what we’ve been seeing lately. Its no where near good enough the standards I’ve set with the players. The goals we conceded were very poor goals. We lacked energy, we lacked creativity, players didn’t seem to want to get on the ball.”
Today’s win showed glimpses of how Schumacher wants his Stoke side to play, here’s what the Potter’s head coach had to say about the game:
“Personally, it's great to get the first win under the belt. When you come into a job, you're desperate just to get the first win on your record and we’ve done that and we’re still unbeaten.
The only negative about today's game is we wish we'd got that clean sheet but it is a great bit of skill by their young lad and they get their goal. But we’re building and it's one step at a time.
It's obviously a really good win and an important win as well. We spoke before the game about how tough it was going to be. I think Birmingham City have got some really good forward players, they have been in half-decent form and we knew it was going to be a hard game, but I felt the way that the lads applied themselves to the game plan was really positive, especially in the first half.
We showed some bits of quality as well so that was really pleasing and we managed to do enough to get the three points that we desperately wanted and obviously needed.”
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