Stoke City manager Gary Rowett wasn’t pulling his punches after failing to defeat in his first competitive game since joining the club.
📹 Gary Rowett gives his reaction to Stoke City's opening day loss at @LUFC
Full interview 👉 https://t.co/clHa6W2QVm#SCFC 🔴⚪️ pic.twitter.com/9QYyOjrAAo
— Stoke City FC (@stokecity) August 5, 2018
Heading to Elland Road to face Leeds United in our opening Championship fixture of the 2018/19 campaign, we suffered a pretty comprehensive 3-1 defeat at their hands with only Benik Afobe’s second-half penalty offering the travelling fans something to cheer.
Having been heavily tipped for promotion back to the Premier League at the first time of asking, this defeat has been met with the expected reaction but it will temper some of the optimism and talk of walking the league which was never really going to happen.
In addition to the above tweet, journalist Phil Hay tweeted out one of Rowett’s sentences from his post-game press conference and overall I doubt fans will disagree with his sentiment, especially in terms of ‘shocking’ some of the players into performing better in the future and plenty thought complacency had come into our game.
Reactions to both threads online carried a very familiar theme from fans.
Credit to Leeds but that's the same Stoke side I've seen for 3 years. It was an absolute embarrassment.
— Rob Gurney (@Rob_Stokie90) August 5, 2018
Thought they just had to turn up and they’d win easily.
— Stephen Mowbray (@SJMowbray77) August 5, 2018
Will shock the fans even more
— nigel sullivan (@SullivanNigel) August 5, 2018
That Afobe is not right for Stoke.. too lackluster and lazy. For goodness sake find players with energy and passion… Same as last year…!!!
— Ray Gower (@GowerRay) August 5, 2018
The most honest assessment of a stoke performance by any manager in the last 10 years
— Jamie C (@coxeymcqueen) August 5, 2018
Get the current players to put a bit of effort in !!!!
— Rich (@CFWTstore) August 5, 2018
Wasn't just him. I thought Allen was shocking too. Couldn't keep possession all game.
— Sam Williamson ???????????????? (@Telescuffle) August 5, 2018
Awful performance from the management to the players all over! Leeds were the better team n their management was too!
— Ashley Cunningham (@racunny1983) August 5, 2018
