Stoke City lose to Battling Ten-Man Morecambe.
Stoke City arrived at what their club website still describes as the Globe Arena tonight to take-on Morecambe in the First Round of the League Cup. Michael O’Neill’s team beat Blackpool 2-0 at home last Saturday to register their first win – and first points – of the new season. The victory propelled them up the Championship table from almost bottom to twelfth. At the same time, Morecambe were losing 3-0 at Peterborough and dropped into the League One relegation zone (21st position) as a result.
League form could be forgotten, however, tonight. This evening’s match marked a historic occasion for both clubs. Stoke (which wasn’t a city at the time) were founder-members of the Football League in 1888. Morecambe, as we all know, were founded in 1921. But in over 230 years of existence between them, the two clubs had never previously been drawn against each other in any senior competition. Morecambe Manager Derek Adams had this to say about both the League Cup and the opposition prior to the game:
“I want to respect the competition, we won’t make many changes for the game on Tuesday night because it is a competition that everyone wants to do well in. You want to play your best team, that is what you want to do on a week-by-week basis and this competition is no different. We are looking forward to being back at home, Stoke is a game where they are favourites, it is great for us. (But) it is the Carabao Cup and we want to progress to the next round.
We obviously think they’ll change their squad about a bit from Saturday. They haven’t got as big a squad as some Championship teams so they might not make as many changes as people expect. They’ve got a strong bench (and) I would expect some of them to play. We see from Saturday the patterns of play, the formation they’ve played in the first two games of the season. They’ve switched it about from the Millwall game to the Blackpool game to good effect. They’ve got an extremely strong outfit, a team that is obviously looking to get from the Championship back up to the Premier League and we understand that.”
For the visitors, Assistant Manager Dean Holden had these thoughts before the match started:
“We’ve watched a lot of them in the last couple of days. They changed from a back four in the first game at Shrewsbury to go with a back three against Peterborough, when they changed to a back four in the second half. I think when you look at a team like this, there are always players in there who have played at a higher level and for whatever reason have ended up in League One at the moment. They’ve got some strengths in there. They’ve got a big striker in Cole Stockton who can be effective on the day. We know they’ve got some players who are good footballers. It’s early in the season and you’re not quite sure what you’re going to get but they do try to play the right way. They want to play from the back and make the pitch expansive when they’re in possession. There will be threats and challenges for us to overcome and we’ve got to make sure when we get the ball that we hurt them.”
For the visitors, Josh Tymon and Ben Wilmot were both carrying injuries prior to the game.
Left wing-back Tymon set-up both of Stoke’s goals against Blackpool last Saturday but limped off in the closing stages with an ankle problem. Centre-half Wilmot had a heel problem before the game and neither was considered fit enough to be risked tonight.
For Morecambe, King Derek chose to start with the same eleven who lost at Peterborough last Saturday.
Tonight’s Referee was Andy Haines from Tyne & Wear. He is one of the EFL’s weaker performers. He had a shocker when in charge of the Bradford game on New Year’s Day a few seasons ago, where he lost control of what turned out to be a very feisty match. He then infamously sent off Skipper Sam Lavelle against Newport County – a decision which Derek Adams was still angry about even after his team had just dumped the Welsh club out of the Play Off League Two final just over a year ago. Last season, he officiated in the 2-2 home draw against Charlton Athletic in a fussy display in which he made a lot of poor decisions. Last Saturday, he sent-off Shrewsbury’s Tom Flanagan against Accrington Stanley. Hopefully, his influence of the game tonight would prove to be both minimal and non-controversial.
It had been positively hot in North Lancashire all day before the game. There were disappointingly lotsof empty space in the home crowd but the visitors filled-up the away end with a travelling contingent of over 800 fans.
The match started on the best possible note, however for Morecambe fans. Jacob Bedeau was introduced to the crowd as Derek Adams’ latest signing. He played on-loan with some distinction last season as a Blackburn Rovers player but he has signed on the dotted line with the Shrimps for the next two years. I have it on good authority that he is actually delighted with the new deal. I’m sure all Shrimps’ supporters are too: this young man simply exudes class.
Apart from that, there wasn’t a lot to report in the first half. I thought that Morecambe shaded the opening stages and then Stoke dominated the game for a while before the hosts got on top again towards the end of the period. Chances were few and far between. Connor Ripley looked a bit shaky when he weakly punched a Jordan Thompson cross from the Stoke left away after fourteen minutes. The hosts won a number of corners earlier in the half only for City to force a few later on – but none of them came to anything and neither goalkeeper was seriously tested at any time.
The visitors stepped-up the pace at the beginning of the second half and pinged the ball around accurately without actually causing any problems for the home defence. After about ten minutes of playing in their own half, though, the Shrimps started to get their own act together and I personally thought the contest was evenly poised coming up to the hour mark.
And then everything changed.
I expressed the hope earlier that Referee wouldn’t spoil proceedings tonight. But just one look at the physical specimen that is Andy Haines, though, told you that this man was literally not fit enough to officiate at League One level. His beer gut is bigger than mine. But I’m 68 and I don’t pretend to be competent to referee football matches. He could not keep up with the pace of the match and the result was that his decisions were often based on guesswork because he was nearly always miles away where the action was actually taking place. As a consequence, he got a lot of decisions wrong – for both sides. But when he decided to book Jensen Weir in the sixty-first minute, it was a ridiculous decision: he didn’t even touch an opponent who clearly slipped as they came alongside each other. Even the Stoke players seemed amazed by the decision. Just sixty seconds later, though, Jensen was off. He did commit a foul on Jason Brown on this occasion but whether it was bad enough to merit a yellow card is another matter.
The whole atmosphere of the game changed after this. There was a point – perhaps for the next ten minutes or so – when the Referee totally lost control of the game and what had previously been a contest played in an excellent spirit threatened to boil-over into something quite nasty. Shortly after Weir had been dismissed, Ash Hunter became involved in some sort of argy-bargy with two Stoke players. This was right alongside Mr Haines. He should have stopped the game there and then and sorted things out. Instead, he waved play-on and floundered in the wake of an away attack which came to nothing – and then did nothing retrospectively to calm things down.
His was an appalling performance tonight which could – and almost did – spoil the game. The crowd was right – he didn’t know what he was doing and people as weak and clueless as he is actually bring the whole profession of full-time Referees into disrepute.
I thought the very long moment when this man stopped play to take a slow – and probably very dramatic walk from his point of view – to issue a yellow card to Morecambe Manager Derek Adams shortly after the sending off said it all. It was all about him; not the game and certainly not the players. In the immortal words of Liz Truss – this was a disgrace…
For the hosts, impressive substitute Caleb Watts fairly hammered a shot just over the bar from quite a way out in injury time. There was a shout for a penalty as well in the dying embers of the game but the man with the whistle was yet again too far away to see what had actually happened. The one decision the officiating team did get right tonight was to rule-out substitute Dwight Gayle’s apparent `goal’ after 77 minutes for Off Side. Credit for this, though, must not go to the leader of the Comedy Quartet at the Maz tonight but to Helen Edwards, the woman with the flag on the main stand side of the pitch.
After that, Keeper Ripley did well to keep out substitute Harry Clarkes’s effort with his foot after 84 minutes. Four minutes later, a low shot from Thompson cannoned off the goalkeeper’s right-hand post with Connor beaten and it was probably at this time that the visitors thought that their luck was simply not in tonight, despite having played for 38 minutes against ten men. (Once again – where did eight minutes’ extra time come from in a game where there were few injuries and thus hardly any stoppages?)
But Lady Luck seemed to smile anew on the visitors when they won the toss and were able to face their own supporters in the penalty shoot-out which ensued.
Morecambe – in the shape of substitute Dylan Connolly – scored emphatically from the spot first time of asking. Then Jon Obika; Caleb Watts; Donald Love and – finally – Shane McLoughlin did the same. For Stoke; William Smallbone; Sam Clukas and Jordan Thompson also scored. Crucially, though, Morgan Fox’s first effort for the visitors almost cleared the stand roof, not just the crossbar – and Championship Stoke were duly humbled.
A clearly very stressed Stoke Manager Michael O’Neill was far from magnanimous in defeat. He said that Morecambe were a dirty side and added:
“Some of the tackling was disgraceful. We’re disappointed to go out of the competition but we’re pleased to get out without a player being seriously injured.”
His job – even so early in the season – is clearly already on the line after not exactly setting the world on fire in the Potteries after quitting his job as Northern Ireland international boss quite some time ago now. Losing to a team a division below won’t help the situation he finds himself in and this probably explains his quite extraordinary reaction to tonight’s defeat. In truth, his team were beaten fair and square by ten men.
Derek Adams was rightly pleased with the result of his players’ endeavours tonight. Given that he had already received a yellow card from the Man in the Middle, his criticism of this person was probably very sensibly muted rather than overt:
“It was a really great night. We handled Stoke really well and caused them trouble. Over the night I didn’t think Stoke threatened us much apart from a little when we were down to 10. Stoke didn’t have a player booked in a game where there were a lot of fouls and I find that hard to believe.”
Amen to that. But Morecambe go marching on the Round Two.
Morecambe: 1 Connor Ripley (C); 2 Donald Love; 3 Max Melbourne; 4 Liam Gibson (Y) (18 Shane McLoughlin 78’); 5 Farrend Rawson; 6 Ryan Delaney; 7 Jake Taylor(11 Dylan Connolly 85’); 8 Ousmane Fané (Y); 9 Cole Stockton (19 Jon Obika 85’); 10 Ash Hunter (17 Caleb Watts 78’); 15 Jensen Weir (R).
Subs not used: 12 Adam Smith; 21 Ryan Cooney; 22 Anthony O’Connor; 23 Wes McDonald.
Stoke City: 13 Jack Bonham; 3 Morgan Fox; 6 Phil Jagielka; 32 Connor Taylor; 7 Sam Clukas; 8 Lewis Baker (18 William Smallbone 66’); 9 Jacob Brown (11 Dwight Gayle 65’); 10 Tyrese Campbell (29 D’Margio Wright-Phillips 65’); 15 Jordan Thompson; 22 Gavin Kilkenny (28 Josh Laurent 76’); 39 Tom Sparrow (2 Harry Clarke 76’);
Subs not used: 34 Frank Fielding; 4 Aden Flint; 35 Edward Jones; 41 David Okagbue.
Ref: Andy `Hopeless’ Haines.
Att: 2,806.
