Stoke City manager Paul Lambert has said he can’t criticise the efforts of the players in Monday evening’s clash with Manchester City and he’s absolutely correct in saying that.
However effort alone won’t help Stoke City avoid the drop this season.
Hosting Pep Guardiola’s Champions elect at the Bet365 Stadium on Monday night, a David Silva brace sent us to a two nil defeat on the night and it’s fair to say that defeat was expected given relative form and clearly that performance was far greater than the one in the earlier seven two defeat.
The problem is we’re starting to run out of ‘on paper’ winnable games and we need to capitalise quickly whilst we remain only one point from safety.
Speaking to the Official Website as he met with the media following the game, Lambert was again taking the positives from the match.
‘They are as good a side as I have seen in a long time, and believe me, it is incredibly difficult to keep them at bay. The way they move the ball around the pitch, press forward as a collective unit, pick out passes and break through opponents is quite breath-taking really. That said, I have to give my own team some credit because we never capitulated which could have happened when they scored the first goal so early on.’
Lambert went on to say.
‘Better teams than ourselves have done that this season, so I have to give the lads praise for sticking at it and getting at them. They never really managed to calve us open tonight, like they have with other teams, we made a couple of wrong decisions which helped them with their goals, but all in all I thought we were strong and resolute.’
With 23% possession, three efforts and non on target I’m guessing Lambert meant ‘getting amongst them’ as opposed to at them.
He did however rightly add in light of the opponents.
‘This game is not going to define our season, not at all – there are positives to be taken from this game for sure. We are still well in the mix, there are plenty of points to be played for and we will be ready to go again on Saturday against Everton.’
Has to be a win doesn’t it?
