When we played Stoke City at St Mary’s, it was the first reality check when we suddenly realized that, oh hang on a minute, we might in fact be a bit shit this season and Will Still is not the second coming. That defeat, where we basically got outplayed by a club that had finished consistently in the bottom half of the Championship over the last few seasons, was initially written off as a blip until we had a few more.

Both teams have come a long way since that particular game, with Stoke being in and around the play-off places all season and Saints meandering along between about 10th and 21st. Stoke’s form has tailed off a bit in the last few weeks due to falling foul of the Championship curse of having half of their squad injured. With any luck, the former attack that gave us so many problems at St Mary’s – Sorba Thomas, Bae Jun Ho, Devin Mubama and Million Manhoef – will be somewhat depleted. In the last game, which was away at Birmingham. Thomas in fact, was playing at right back and was getting absolutely roasted by Birmingham’s left winger, so it’ll be interesting to see if they try and do that match-up with Leo Scienza.

If Thomas is in his regular position of left-wing, then he will be up against James Bree who he absolutely tortured earlier on in the season whilst playing against Charlton. One Stoke player who always gives us problems as Viktor Johansson but he won’t be playing today because of course, they signed Gavin Bazunu from us to cover for his long-term injury. Baz wouldn’t have been able to play against us today of course, but in any case, he is injured and rumoured to be out for the next six weeks.

It’s hard to know what Tonda will do this week of course. He will probably try and be too clever as usual. The press conferences leading up to the game didn’t really yield any clues and were the usual collections of politicians answers and word salad and he seems incapable of answering a direct question with an answer. I can’t imagine that our team will be too different to the one that started at Fratton Park on Sunday, but I would certainly expect Tom Fellows and Ross Stewart to be the most likely to come into contention.

If Stewart plays, it will probably be at the expense of Adam Armstrong who, with one week left of the transfer window, has been linked with a move away. As far as I know there have not been any definite destinations mentioned bar Wrexham, but they get linked with everyone. It seems that his agent has got busy and the implication is that he’s available. If we sell him without having a replacement lined up then we are obviously giving up on this season as everyone knows, there is no value in the January market, so many player you want is £5 million more expensive than he should be, but having said that, Armstrong will go for a bigger fee now then he will in the summer, but it is still the summer when I expect him to move on. He’s always been a strange player, obviously not good enough for the Premier League but a confident Arma is worth £15 million whereas the version we have right now, most definitely is not. Another one of our strikers is attracting interest and that’s Cameron Archer. If he left it would be a much more palatable loss than if Arma left, but the interest allegedly comes from the blue half of Glasgow so that immediately puts doubt in my mind because Rangers only ever seem to offer vibes rather than actual money in any sort of realistic quantity.

Also attracting interest is THB, and this, for me, would be the biggest loss of the lot because he is by far our best central defender, and a centre-back pairing of Jack Stephens and Nathan Wood doesn’t even bear thinking about and would make me more worried about the prospect of getting dragged into the relegation fight. The interest in THB comes from two clubs who have a very high chance of being in the Championship next season: Burnley and West Ham. West Ham are, of course, the biggest piss-takers when it comes to offers for players, and there are rumours in some news outlets that they want to take THB on loan. What a great deal for us that is. If, in fact, they are keen to put in an actual offer to buy the player, then I’m sure it will be well below the £20 million that we paid for him, and I really don’t think we should part with him at this stage of the season unless they or anyone else offers silly money. We have been linked with a young Croatian centre-back called Branimir Mlacic, who has only played five first-team games for his Croatian side, Hajduk Split, so he cannot be seen as ready for the here and now in the Championship if it all comes to pass.

Jack Stephens has just given an interview where he’s hinted that we are still looking for promotion. Do we still have a promotion tilt in us? Personally, I would be surprised given the inconsistency we have shown all season but if there is any thought of making a late bid for the playoffs, then we have to target this game for a win today. Stoke have not been great over the last few weeks and as said, have a few players injured. The result of this game and the next few days on the transfer market, will tell us if the board are happy to put all their eggs in the basket for next season or whether they want to have a go this season. Also there are the outgoings – can Johannes Spors or Rasmus Ankersen (or whoever does it and no one is sure) finally help the club lose the liability of having to find Aribo and Edozie sized wages every week.

I am preparing to be underwhelmed on all fronts but hope to be pleasantly surprised.

The team news is in and there’s a bit of a sharp intake of breath because neither Armstrong nor Archer are in the squad, meaning that the strikers we have today are Ross Stewart, who is of course starting the game, and Nick Oyekunle from the under-21s. Arma apparently has a knock…. bullshit! That rather glaring weakness on the bench is mitigated by the fact that the starting 11 is the strongest that we could possibly put out, with Bree keeping his place from last week’s excursion to the Fratton Spitoon and Tom Fellows returning in place of Matsuki, and we are good to go.

Our nemesis of St Mary’s, Sorba Thomas, has the first run of the game as he careers forward down the left wing, with Bree out of position but Jack Stephens gets across to perfectly execute a sliding tackle and get the ball away. From the clearance, Stoke attack again down the other side and it’s Captain Jack again stepping in to dispossess Jun Ho. This time from the clearance, Scienza flies past the full-back and gets into the box before getting tackled by the last man and what start of the game this is.

Saints are being patient as usual with the ball at the back and then an opportunity presents itself and Stephens makes his third positive contribution in the opening in five minutes by releasing a lovely ball in between the right back in the centre back, made easier by the fact that the right back Talovierov has decided to go in mark someone who isn’t there, halfway up the pitch. Scienza is away on the left and he cuts in before shooting and Stoke centre back Phillipsgets across to block out from a corner. In comes the corner from Scienza and Stephens tries to get to it at the back post, but he’s very very clearly having his arm yanked back by the Talovierov and the referee is looking straight at it and the lino is on that side, but neither give anything. That’s absolutely fucking ridiculous.

Unperturbed, Saints keep knocking the ball around with Stephens finding THB, who plays an absolute slide rule defence splitting pass in between the centre back and left back and Fellows is away and he can pick out either Stewart or Azaz with a simple pass as they are behind him and he chooses the latter and goes straight to Azaz, who runs it easily into the net. Fucking brilliant goal.

We are so in control of this but then a switch-off to gift Stoke a way straight back into the game as we knock the ball back to Peretz, who makes almighty fuck of trying to play a first time pass out to the left and the ball hits his standing leg and gives striker Smit a chance, but Peretz redeems himself by steaming into the tackle and winning it. Not the ideal way to get there but a decent result in the end of the day.

Stoke have another moment when they react well to a loose ball in midfield and Bae Junho runs forward before taking aim from 30 yards and it looks for all the world like it’s in the top corner but Peretz takes off, diving superbly to his left and flipping the ball away with his top hand. Absolutely fucking outstanding save.

It’s Azaz’ turn to play an absolute defence splitter now as he turns in the middle of the park and superbly floats a ball through to Fellows on the right. Fellows, making the most of not being 30 yards further back, decides to hit it straight away and amazingly, he gets it on target and Stoke keeper Simkin has to pull off a really good safe to his right. Tom gets one on target klaxon.

We are definitely targeting the full backs and that’s because they are both clearly shite. Saints closed down Talovierev and win the ball back through Jander‘s pressing. The ball goes to Stewart who clearly handles it, but the ref doesn’t give anything and the ball goes onto Azaz on the edge of the penalty area, who cuts inside Phillips and gets chopped down. The referee, Farai Hallam, blows and books Azaz for diving. Fuck off. You could see there was contact on the first watch and the ref clearly hasn’t given that because he didn’t give the handball earlier, which is absolute bullshit.

Half time and we’ve been decent and this is looking, dare I say it, comfortable. One more goal should just about do it. We are looking solid and keeping Stoke to scraps. Hopefully our second half collapses are a thing of the past.

Second half and Scienza feeds the overlapping Welington and his low cross is deflected wide for a corner. In it comes from Leo and Flynn Downes escapes from a standard Stoke player performing a rugby tackle, which is allowed by this referee and manages to free himself enough to tread on the ball and ends up flat on his arse before swinging his right boot at it and toe poking it in at the near post. Well, it ain’t gonna win the Puskas award but who gives a fuck. It’s worth one goal, same as any other fucking goal. Get in.

Stoke look pretty done now. It’s almost like they know the situation is pointless. Stewart combines with Scienza on the left before Leo stands one up to the back post and it looks like Azaz’ effort is going to drop in at the far post but a defender gets a bit of it and Stoke escape. Saints are pissing this now and recycle it to Fellows who gets his second shot on target today, and second on target this season, drilling it straight at the keeper at the near post.

Another corner and another set of Stoke man to man wrestling for the referee to ignore. He’s looking straight at it as THB’s shirt comes billowing out from his back as he tries to make a forward movement away from his assailant. Nothing to see here. Dickhead referee.

Substitution time and both Ross and Leo come off and the rejigged attack is now Fellows ont he left, Matsuki on the right and Oyekunle up front. We are clearly now going for being solid and not giving them anything, but our attacking threat has gone. Stoke are mounting sporadic attacks but nothing serious and Bree’s clearance under pressure goes to the edge of the box and is drilled at goal by Seko and Peretz gets down and finger tips the ball onto the post and we get it away. As the game peters out, the referee predictably waves play on as Welington is barged over by Fawumni and the game ends where it started with Captain Jack steaming across to block the shot.

Final whistle and what a solid professional performance that was. It might not have been a feast of attacking flowing football but that can wait for another day. I feel that we got the balance exactly right today between pragmatism and attacking threat, for the first hour anyway. I felt that we played football when we could and matched Stoke for effort and desire, when we couldn’t. Basically, we earned the right to play.

We needed to get the job done today and we did and never looked in trouble from the moment we went ahead, which you have not been able to say very much this season. Our performance without the ball in particular is absolutely superb, led by Flynn Downes in midfield, snapping and snarling into every challenge and of course still finding time to score a goal whilst lying on his arse. This was the player who was probably the best player in the Championship two years ago.

Whilst Downes set the tone, the rest of the defensive effort stems from the goalkeeper and back four. I don’t want to be one of those guys who says I told you so, but I fucking did. Two clean sheets and three games and seven points out of nine since we stopped fannying around with wingbacks and poor goalkeepers. Having a competent goalkeeper is massive, and Daniel Peretz is getting better with every passing game. He had the one dodgy moment today with with an attempted pass which bobbled off his standing leg and nearly presented Stoke with a goal, but other than that, he caught everything, punched everything and smashed the ball up the pitch when he needed to. He also made two excellent saves, clawing Bae Junho’s effort out of the top corner in the first half and fingher-tipping the low shot from the edge of the box onto the post in the second. A keeper who makes saves when you’re not necessarily expecting him to and also tries to dominate the six yard box.

Also getting better with every passing game is Jack Stephens, who put in his best performance for at least a year. There was no hiding, no letting THB do everything and this is the level he needs to keep to and not do what he’s always done in the past and suddenly have a game where he looks like a pub player with a hangover after a big sesh the night before. Getting rid of wing-backs and playing a proper right back and a proper left back has been an undeniable massive boost to the team. James Bree put behind his Charlton nightmare of playing against his Sorba Thomas and had an excellent game against him, never taking a backward step. On the other side, Welington has to be in with a shout for man of the match. Very, very strong in the tackle, reliable in the air and you would imagine, cementing his place for the rest of the season.

Downes and Jander of course provided protection in front of the back four and dealt admirably with every midfielder Stoke could throw out them, including World Cup Winner Stephen Nzonzi and World Class Shithouse Ben Pearson. Up front we carried a constant threat through Ross Stewart and the recalled Tom Fellows, who along with Leo Scienza helped us with the game plan which was to target Stoke’s fullbacks, which we did to brilliant effect on the first goal with THB picking out Fellows with a wonderful ball and Fellows laying on a plate for Azaz.

We have to talk about the referee Farai Hallam, who did admittedly let the game flow but he did it at the expense of getting any decisions right. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say we should’ve had three penalties. One for the foul on Azaz where he got booked for for diving, one for Jack Stephens having his arm yanked back as he tried to get to a corner and one for THB having his shirt pulled off his back whilst competing for a corner. Jack Stephens then pulls a guy back in the middle of the park much less aggressively in the second half and of course gets booked. Rightly so of course and that’s kind of the point.

The team that Tonda put out was the strongest that we could possibly put out and the starting XI got the job done. The last half an hour I did however highlight the weaknesses in the squad with no Armstrong or Archer on the bench we had to pitch in Nick Oyekunle who basically ended up doing shuttle runs for half an hour. Taking Scienza off at the same time meant that our attacking threat completely disappeared. Matsuki got stuck in well and had a couple of bright moments on the right, but switching Fellows to the left gave us absolutely nothing. Interestingly, he left Azaz on this week. Strange player is Finn but with his assist at Fratton and goal today, hopefully we can look forward to another five or six games run where it’s a goal or an assist per game.

Well, we need to win this one to have any chance of going on a run between now and the end of the season and now we’ve achieved that. It’s about consistency of course. If we play like we did today, then we will have a really good end of the season and you never know. We might just be the team on a run that sneaks into the playoffs.

Next up Watford… their manager has just left. Surprise.

Up the fucking Saints