Well thats it folks! Season 2009/10 is no more and now we have the World Cup, another hectic off season full of daily transfer gossip linking us with everyone, from Arbeloa to Zigic, before we finally got down to the serious stuff again on August 14th.
This season is one we should look back at with pride. We started out fully understanding that, even though we had finished 12th last season, we would be one of the favourites for the drop again and would have to play out of our skin to keep our Premier League status come 6pm yesterday.
As it turned out we did it comfortably, too comfortably for some, and we never looked like getting sucked into the battle to stay up at any point, hey we even topped the league for ten minutes on the opening day!
As we kicked off against Burnley we were worrying that we hadn't strengthened enough during the summer, £5m midfielder Dean Whitehead the only real signing at that point, and we still had Richard Cresswell in the starting line up. That day we had a comfortable 2-0 win but that was more to do with Burnley's lack of quality on the day. Four days later we were thumped 4-0 at Anfield, whilst Burnley neat Manchester United at Turf Moor, to really leave us scratching our heads, but reaffirm those views we would be struggling if we didn't get some faces in.
We would bring faces in before the end of the month, Tuncay and Robert Huth arrived from Middlesbrough, Danny Collins from Sunderland and the mystery surrounding the signature of Diego Arismendi is still yet to be solved to this day. Whereas Huth would immediately grab a first XI place and keep his place, if not position, for the season Collins and Tuncay would flit in and out of the side throughout the season, the fans frustrated one was featuring too much and frustrated the other one wasn't playing enough.
One man who was like a new signing, well for a few weeks anyway, was David Kitson, thats David not Dave!, as he opened his Potters account, a mere 14 months after signing for a club record fee, when he netted a 30 yard snap shot against Leyton Orient in the Carling Cup. Crucial goals against Sunderland and Bolton followed before he was dropped from the side for the trip to Everton and was then, much to the shock of a lot of supporters, loaned out to Middlesbrough at a time when he was top scorer. Kitson would return and scored a couple more vital goals, in a cup replay against Manchester City and at home to Bolton, before storming off after being subbed against Chelsea and then launching into a very public tirade against TP, using the upper class national papers to do so.
James Beattie was the hero of last season, scoring the goals that kept us up, but he turned up to this season looking disinterested and overweight, and apart from a brace against West Ham, one from the spot, and a goal against Wolves, that was awarded to him despite him not touching the ball!, he did the square root of nothing and whinging about an extra day off to get leathered at Christmas when your in that kind of form isn't exactly a smart move. TP decided he'd had enough, and alledgedly landed a Glasgow kiss on the lazy git. Beattie cried to the papers about it, tried to sue the gaffer, was unsuccessful, so cried about it to the papers again!
It seems like we have had one bad season but these events seemed to have the opposite effect. We had two decent cup runs, adding Blackpool, in arguably the game of the season, to the scalp of Leyton Orient before falling to a heavy defeat at Portsmouth in Round Four of the Carling Cup and then defeating York, Arsenal and Manchester City in the FA Cup, all by three goals to one, all at home, but Citeh after a replay. That run was ended at the quarter final stage by Chelsea, who will go into next weeks final as heavy favourites. This was the first time in 38 years we got to the last eight stage of the worlds Premier domestic knockout competition.
The Potters home form is what got them out of jail last season whilst away from home we were, for use of a better word, woeful with just two wins and four draws all season. That was addressed this season as we became hard to beat and after the first four months of the season we had only been beaten by Liverpool and Hull away and Chelsea and Manchester United at home. In that time though we had gone to Everton, Bolton and Blackburn and drew and amazingly got a Simonsen inspired win at Spurs, all four games resulting in heavy defeats last season.
December saw the first wobble as defeats to Arsenal, Villa, Manchester City and Birmingham, coupled with two more dropped points at home to Wigan saw us slip down the top half of the table just as the transfer window was about to be opened up. We needed to address this slide sooner rather than later and Tony Pulis made the brave, but in the end inspirational, step of sending out his first XI for the FA Cup tie at home to York. If defeated it could have had a devastating effect on team spirit and when we went behind after 22 minutes nails were already being bitten. Within two minutes that was all forgotten though as a double strike put us in front after 24 minutes. Etherington added a third on the hour and confidence was restored.
The snow had delayed that kick off and whilst 99% of the games were called off due to snow the staff at the Brit worked overtime to get our game with Fulham on and Sky decided, on the day of the game, to televise te match. Tuncay inspired us and we were 3-0 up after half an hour. Although Fulham clawed two back after the break, with Tuncay going off before half time with a hamstring injury, the three points were more than welcome and took us back into the top half and six points from the dreaded drop zone. Two massive home games followed and Huth grabbed a late point against Liverpool when he tapped home in injury time before the Gunners were disarmed in the FA Cup, as a Fuller brace and a third from Whitehead put City through. Asmir Begovic joined from Portsmouth late on in the window, turning down Tottenham to join the Potters.
February looked daunting! Trips to Manchester City in the cup, Sunderland, Portsmouth and Wigan in the league and home games with Arsenal, Blackburn and Manchester City had the fans hoping for enough of a return to keep the Potters away from the danger zone. Amazingly, even with a replay against Manchester City chucked in aswell, it wasn't until the final minutes of the final game, at home to Arsenal, that we were defeated as we shut out Sunderland, battered Blackburn, came from behind to draw at Wigan and Manchester City before being robbed of a perfectly good winner in the 94th minute at home to Citeh four days later. We then did have an injury time winner, away at Pompey, courtesy of Salif Diao, before finally beating Citeh in an enthralling midweek cup tie at the Brit. The majority of this was done without star man Matthew Etherington, with Ricardo Fuller upping his game to fill the void caused by the wingers knee injury, and it all caught up with the team when Arsenal rolled into town. Danny Pugh was given a rare start and took advantage by stooping to head in at the far post early on. Arsenal hit back to equalise before the defining moment in possibly two young careers as Ryan Shawcross and Aaron Ramsey went for a 50/50 ball. The result was a broken leg for Ramsey, who seemed to nick the ball and then pull out of the challenge, and a red card for Shawcross, the ref admitting after the card was for the injury not the tackle, you confused cause I am! City players comforted Ramsey whilst his teammates, supposedly anyways, danced around like fairies in front of the referee showing not a care for the well being of a guy they work with every day. The Potters seemed drained from the incident and two injury time goals, one from the spot, took a point from our grasp.
In a strange twist to events Shawcross received his first international call up that very evening but didn't feature as Capello's men played their last game before he announces his World Cup squad. Matthew Etherington was another Potter on the verge of that squad but missed out with the knee injury sustained, with Capello in the stands, in the cup tie at Eastlands three weeks prior.
Stoke were dumped out of the cup at Stamford Bridge the week after and with Shawcross now injured in training and Faye never fully fit, we were hoping to find some goals to relieve the pressure on a stretched defence.
That defence was rock solid though and four clean sheets in five games took the Potters past the magic 40 point barrier and creep up on last seasons 45 point total.
TP had been calling for weeks that we had to beat last seasons total and we were five minutes from doing it at home to Bolton but turned a 1-0 win into a 2-1 home defeat courtesy of some shoddy defending and, suprise, suprise dodgy refereeing.
That left four tough games to try and claim three points and achieve the goal set out by the manager and it didn't start well. Chelsea were gunning for the title and needed to improve their goal difference so there was always a danger it could end up messy. It did end up messy, very messy, but refereeing decisions again contributed as Kalou dislocated Sorensen' elbow with a two footed lunge at the keeper with the ball free near the line. The ref allowed the goal, to the amazement of the fans and pundits watching.A straight red card for Kalou would have been a fairer assessment but that was 2-0 and the team seemed disinterested, maybe due to a half time scuffle between Faye and Whelan, as the hosts notched up five more to win 7-0, Tony Pulis' worst ever result as a manager.
Asmir Begovic had enjoyed a nightmate debut, coming on as sub at the Bridge, but then kept two clean sheets as we drew with Everton after dominating the game throughout and then beat Fulham after being under the cosh quite a but during the match.
That took us to the final day and being involved in a title decider. Could we be the ones to stop Man Utd's record 19th league title? Well we weren't able to contain them, losing 4-0, but Chelsea routing Wigan 8-0 meant that the Potters fans at Old Trafford could still celebrate at achieving our seasons objectives and have fun rubbing it in towards the Manchester United fans.