Things are looking up for Stoke City, who have shot up to the middle of the table, while Newcastle United continue to look like the worst team in the division despite the abundance of talent at their disposal. The Potters won 1-0 at home on Monday, and the result might spell the end of the road for Magpies boss Alan Pardew.
3 things we learned from Stoke City’s 1-0 win over Newcastle United
Time to say goodbye to Alan Pardew? His Newcastle United side were very poor in a loss to Stoke City on Monday.
Gareth Copley
The hosts were on the front foot from the start, and surprised no one by scoring an early goal. Victor Moses looked consistently dangerous on the left wing leading to his run and cross for Peter Crouch, who rose up above Fabricio Coloccini to win a header and nod past Tim Krul from eight yards
Stoke could have had a second from the spot six minutes later when Paul Dummett appeared to trip Moses in the penalty area, but the referee waved play on.
In the 23rd minute, the Potters suffered a bit of a blow with Mame Biram Diouf going down injured, necessitating an immediate substitution. Marco Arnautovic was brought in as a nearly like-for-like substitution on the right wing.
The remainder of the half seemed to be negatively effected by the severe rain, with both teams slipping and struggling to put together anything resembling pretty passing moves. Newcastle striker Emmanuel Riviere looked isolated, struggling to find the ball, and was substituted for Papiss Cisse to start the second half.
Arnautovic nearly doubled Stoke’s lead in the 48th minute, and was unlucky not to score on a brilliant effort from 12 yards. A free kick into the box was badly cleared by Newcastle and fell to Arnautovic, who wasn’t closed down as he hit a powerful volley, but his effort cannoned off the far post.
Stoke nearly scored again in the 62nd minute, with their defense gifting a chance to Moses. Another awful clearance attempt hit the back of a Newcastle player and fell right to the feet of Moses, but Krul came up with a brilliant one-on-one save to keep his team in the game.
A couple of substitutions from both teams livened things up -- Stephen Ireland was less effective than Charlie Adam for Stoke and Sammy Ameobi offered more than Remy Cabella quite quickly -- but that simply meant there was little going on, not that Newcastle began to look like scoring.
Newcastle finally generated a big chance in the 84th minute, through Gabriel Obertan and Jack Colback. Obertan beat his man down the right wing and played a square ball that Colback was able to get on the end of, but he went for power instead of placement with an empty net in front of him and smashed a left-footed half-volley off the crossbar.
Ultimately, that was the closest Newcastle came to scoring, and Stoke were able to hold on for all three well-deserved points.
Stoke: Begovic, Muniesa, Wilson, Shawcross, Bardsley, Whelan, Nzonzi, Adam (Ireland 61’), Moses (Assaidi 82’), Crouch, Diouf (Arnautovic 23’)
Goals: Crouch (15’)
Newcastle: Krul, Dummett, Coloccini, Williamson, Janmaat, Tiote, Colback, Gouffran (Obertan 68’), Cabella (Ameobi 74’), Sissoko, Riviere (Cisse 46’)
Goals: None.
3 things
1. Goodbye, Alan Pardew - Yes, Newcastle owner Mike Ashley is cheap and doesn’t want to buy out Pardew, but his team is going to get relegated (again) at this rate. Even if there’s not a good coach out there that would take this job at a reasonable price, it’s hard to believe that an assistant or youth coach would do worse. His team looked absolutely clueless.
2. Stoke actually are pretty fun - Even though the very severe rain didn't allow Stoke to play at their stylish best, they looked like scoring pretty consistently throughout the match, could have had way more goals and were generally willing to try cool things. With each week, it gets easier to believe that Mark Hughes is going to be successful in turning Stoke into a team that plays entertaining attacking football.
3. Peter Crouch will never run out of amazing dances - Crab hands!!!
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