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Match day thread: Stoke

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  • @micra my judgement having seen him up close last night is that he is slightly off top confidence going forwards.

  • High, late brutal two footed tackle at Adams park by J Cousins?
    Its deja vu all over again.

  • The diving seems inconsistent with such an upright person.

  • Watching at home, I actually thought the ref had a decent game. I was really pleased to see he was willing to stamp down on diving. The yellow cards he produced for Samuel and McClean were both good decisions, backed up by the TV replays.

    The foul on Fred could've been a red. On first viewing it just looked a cynical trip as Fred was getting away from him, but you could see on the replay he had a real hack at him. Borderline yellow/red for me.

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  • For me, Samuel is the best in the squad at receiving the ball with his back to goal - he usually manages to stay on his feet even up against huge defenders like Stoke's entire back line. However, he does need to work on what to do with the ball once he's held it up a bit. And I agree he dives too often when chasing the ball.

  • @ChasHarps said:
    Samuel's dive was a blatant attempt to cheat, I have no sympathy for whatever card is shown to those that inflict such damage on the beautiful game.

    Fully agree, and it doesnt actually help the club overall. The identities of players that cheat soon gets around to all referees, so they will be on the look out in future games. Any 50/50 decisions will likely go against Samuel from now on.

  • @Steve_Peart said:

    @eric_plant said:
    The floodlights are magnificent

    Absolutely dreamy

    Anyone else surprised, and amazed, when someone turned the lights up to 11, seconds before the match started? They are magnificent, so bright, we can now see a midweek game properly for the first time ever.

    This moment was the highlight of the night.

    Would be interested to know if the original post on this quote was posted before this moment as it looked like it was.

    Pure theatre. Well done to whoever planned it.

  • @mooneyman said:

    @ChasHarps said:
    Samuel's dive was a blatant attempt to cheat, I have no sympathy for whatever card is shown to those that inflict such damage on the beautiful game.

    Fully agree, and it doesnt actually help the club overall. The identities of players that cheat soon gets around to all referees, so they will be on the look out in future games. Any 50/50 decisions will likely go against Samuel from now on.

    Was pretty close to the incident and it was a dive. The argument the over the top tackle on Fred got the same punishment is down to the laws rather than the ref.

    Being pitch side the one thing I noticed was the difference in approach to influencing the ref. We went with big falls and crowding the ref whilst Stoke relied on sharp squeals when they felt a touch along with a gentle fall. Ther approach worked much better. We need to improve in this area which is weird to say when our League One reputation made us out to be experts in this area.

    Samuel has a reputation. He needs to work on it.

  • Let's not overdo the criticism of Samuel. He's not generally a diver as such, and usually takes an absolute battering from goon centre backs all game.
    A lot of it is because he's a fairly slight guy but that doesn't mean there's a licence to smash him all game.

    The lights did look good.

  • Samuel is beginning to make DDH look amateurish! I also feel that @glasshalffull saying "alleged" dive is likely to be because of his close and professional affinity with the Club. Speaks volumes nonetheless.
    @Right_in_the_Middle's comment above regarding the approach to trying to influence the Ref is interesting and I'm inclined to agree.

  • Does Samuel try to win more or less than the amount of clear fouls on Bayo that are ignored or awarded to the defender?

  • I thought the tackle on fred was a yellow...more disappointed that Powell got away with his bodyslam myself.

  • @Wendoverman said:
    I thought the tackle on fred was a yellow...more disappointed that Powell got away with his bodyslam myself.

    The assault on McCarthy was the major miss from the officials for me. Considering the free kicks that go against Bayo it was an awful incident and probably shifted the balance firmly towards Stoke. McCarthy going off changed our shape

  • I suspect if Samuel is diving, it's because he's been told to do so. GA could easily tell him not to if he wanted. "Mr Wycombe" also has form when it comes to diving, maybe not last night, but he's certainly shown an unusual affinity for hugging the turf of late.

    Again, if GA really wanted these things stopped it would be very easy to do so.

  • @PBo said:
    I suspect if Samuel is diving, it's because he's been told to do so. GA could easily tell him not to if he wanted. "Mr Wycombe" also has form when it comes to diving, maybe not last night, but he's certainly shown an unusual affinity for hugging the turf of late.

    Again, if GA really wanted these things stopped it would be very easy to do so.

    Bloomfield's is surely more end of career type stuff. He never used to moan at refs or go down as much. Even at the start of the Ainsworth regime.

  • edited December 2020

    Kashket is another big culprit. That one at Southend in 18/19 was cringeworthy - got touched but saw the ref hadn't given anything so decided to take a couple of steps then go down screaming.

  • @micra said:
    The diving seems inconsistent with such an upright person.

    Oh that’s good. Thumbs up from me.

  • On the subject of the floodlights, Matt Cecil confirmed on Twitter they have four brightness levels and didn’t deny that they could do other stuff. That boost at KO was a nice bit of theatre (or as they say these day, mic-drop).

  • Thanks @arnos_grove. Had to choose my words so carefully that I thought the point might be lost but “upright” seemed appropriate in both a physical and a moral sense.

  • I agree that blatant diving is wrong and should be outlawed. The difficulty I have is that referees too often guess and issue cards when they can’t be certain that a player has been fouled.

  • As far as I can tell the issue with diving is that not nearly enough bookings are handed out for it, rather than too many

    Besides, yesterday's was as blatant as you could wish to see, and the referee was not guessing at all

  • @eric_plant said:
    As far as I can tell the issue with diving is that not nearly enough bookings are handed out for it, rather than too many

    Besides, yesterday's was as blatant as you could wish to see, and the referee was not guessing at all

    I was making a general point, not specific to last night’s game. Issuing yellow cards for simulation is effectively accusing players of being cheats (a word referees despise, incidentally) and should only be enforced when there can be no room for doubt.

  • Of course referees despise the word cheat, referees don't cheat. It's an insult to them

    Footballers cheat all the time. It happened last night

  • I was right in front of the Samuel incident and not far from Fred challenge. Having only seen both once and not watched any replays I thought the ref was spot on with both.

    I felt Fred started to get up and only stayed down when he could hear his team mates pleading for a red. Perhaps he thought this may help a red card being shown. He also did not receive any treatment once the situation died down. Some refs may have given a red but he was not going to last night.

    I thought we were marvellous until the McCarthy injury. With depleted resources I think the management were spot on with the tactics used. We had to protect the back four as much as possible. The 4-1-3-2 system worked really well and I couldn't believe how we competed given the new system and lack of those three midfielders.

    I think GA and Dobbo made the wrong decision bringing Bayo on though. I understand why he went that route but having lost McCarthy we needed to protect the midfield even more not invite them on further. With 35 minutes left Bayo was not mobile enough to give that protection of such a weak midfield. We then compounded that further by bringing Kashket on, who harries and chases but more often than not is a little too easy for defenders to get past. We'd gone from a ten man defensive wall to an 8 man wall.

    Having moved from two incredibly hard working and disciplined defenders up front in Samuel and Wheeler, to two attackers who are easy to get past, I felt it was inevitable that Stoke would score at some point.

    McCleary could have come on for McCarthy with Wheeler dropping into the CDM role to try and keep that system and shape for as long as possible. I would have moved Horgan or Fred up front alongside Samuel as part of the 54th minute substitution.

    If we were still at 0-0 perhaps Bayo/Kashket double sub could have been made in the last 10 to try and sneak a win.

    Overall given the injury list and the players available I think we put in a great shift and can be proud of how competitive we were for that first hour. If we had held out for a point, that certainly would have been one to treasure...

  • edited December 2020

    Samuel can count himself lucky the ref didn't guess and give a penalty - if he had done, he might have found himself with a retrospective ban (if the 'keeper had been sent off).

  • Both diving and intentionally committing a foul are cheating.

  • I think there is a difference between a sneaky foul you hope to get away with and a blatant one you know you be punished for

  • Football has its own morality, which is interesting.

    People say they'd rather be hacked down than have someone spit in their face. It seems ridiculous but deep down I reckon most of us would agree.

    Similarly diving disgusts us far more than a robust foul. They're both offences and both against the rules like you say, but it's just the way it is

  • One of the things that's struck me this season is how much better at cheating Championship teams are. Norwich are the obvious example, but two or three times a game we're giving away free kicks that have been 'bought,' by the opposition.

    Samuel's antics (exaggerated on this thread) may not be to everyone's taste, but we're hardly sullying a pure Corinthian spirit that exists at this level.

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