To be fair, Stoke wen't out with the right attitude, and started off quite well. Wayne Thomas had a couple of good attacking runs and it was one of these runs that set up the goal. Thomas went past a couple of players, cutting inside on the edge of the 18 yard box, firing in a shot which Lee Mills got his foot on to curl it into the net from about 8 yards.
Thats when the game turned sour and Stoke were really quite awful. Walsall missed 3 or 4 great opportunities to score with striking that helps you to realise why some players get called Donkey. This was lucky for Stoke because they just weren't creating anything.
Until, Peter Hoekstra passed a perfect ball square to Chris Greenacre by the penalty spot but he scuffed his shot.
Chris Iwelumo from when he came on, won all his flick on headers and at one point, took the ball himself, came back a little and then turned to fire in a cracking effort which was superbly turned away by the keeper for a corner.
A great 3 points from a quite fustrating match. But its the points that matter and Stoke climb to 23rd tonight and look forward to the same again come saturday vs Burnley. (Please God!).
| Please Excuse the lack of statistics for this game |