Stoke’s Gruelling Fall Down the Table & Leagues
When Stoke City earned themselves promotion to the Premier League in 2008 following a 21-win season and second-place Championship finish, it marked the first time in 23 years that the club would find itself back in the top tier, and the celebrations were appropriately raucous. Players dropped to their knees and fans invaded the pitch at the final whistle in scenes which belied the 0-0 score line.
Exactly one decade on, and things were a little less festive at the conclusion of the season. Stoke had hung around for ten seasons, never really looking like making any sort of legitimate move towards the upper reaches of the table but equally seeming fairly safe from relegation. In fact, in all of their first nine seasons back in the top level of English football they finished between 9thand 14thwith between 42 and 54 points. They were the epitome of solid without being spectacular, but in 2017/18 things took a significant turn for the worse. They recorded just nine wins for the season, and with a 19thplace finish, were relegated from the Premier League.
Defence had been a major problem throughout the early stages of the season, but when manager Mark Hughes had his contract terminated in January Paul Lambert came in to tighten things up. Unfortunately, the by-product was that Stoke struggled immensely to score, and so Lambert too fell on his sword and Gary Rowett was given the job of trying to keep the side in contention for promotion from the Championship.
It became apparent relatively quickly, however, that Rowett was not going to be able to fulfil this task, and he became the third Stoke manager to lose his job within the space of 12 months. Nathan Jones was his replacement and quickly began experimenting, and while he managed to stem the flow of losses he also failed to earn many wins, and Stoke finished 16thin a hugely disappointing first season in the Championship.
But it’s a reality in sports that teams sometimes have seasons which look like anomalies down the track, and Stoke fans would have been hoping for a climb back up the table in the 2019/20 season. After Jones swung the changes in the 2019 summer, however, the team got off to a woeful start, and the cycle started again as he was replaced by Michael O’Neill.
Now, just two years after they were a competitive Premier League side and not much more than 12 months since they were still hoping to be promoted back to the top tier, O’Neill has his hands full trying to keep the team away from relegation to EFL League One. And he started well – a clash against fellow relegation candidate Barnsley saw Stoke win 4-2, the first time in 88 matches that they had scored more than three goals.
But he has a long way to go. Stoke have lost 11 of their first 16 games of the season and betting agencies have them ahead of just four teams in the season outright betting odds – join now to take a look at these in more detail. After nine years of consistent mediocrity at the top level – something which plenty of teams promoted to the Premier League aspire to – what has gone so wrong for the Potters in the past two years?
While the numbers might suggest a drastic and sudden decline following a reasonable 2016/17 season, the reality is that the writing had been on the wall for some time. The 2015/16 season ended badly and the next one started similarly, and with few changes made to the list in the summer transfer window there was little suggest much would change. They secured a couple of wins late in the season to ensure they avoided relegation, but the 13thplace finish masked some significant problems.
Still, however, little was done to steady the ship. Mark Hughes was far from the only problem but he appeared unable to take the side any further, and yet still he was backed in. Changes they had made during this period to improve the team proved to be largely failures – GiannelliImbula, as an example, was signed early in 2016 but he proved far more troublesome than he was worth, and things continued to get worse for the Potters.
A season in the Championship could have given them a chance to right the ship, but instead they find themselves fighting to avoid an unthinkable second relegation in three seasons with what the powers that be at the club still believe to be one of the best squads in the league.
Which leads us to the question – is O’Neill the man to turn it all around, and if so, just what does he need to do to set the wheels of the long and arduous climb up the Championship table in motion? Perhaps the most significant reason Stoke wanted to sign him is his ability to create environments within teams that allow players to thrive – this, clearly, is something that has been sorely lacking at Stoke for a long time, and if the squad is indeed one of the best in the Championship and yet finds themselves sitting in second last, a manager who excels at getting the best out of his players is exactly what they need.
Of course, all the problems at Stoke can’t be solved by making all the players feel nice, and O’Neill will need to do more to turn around the mess they find themselves in. He could do worse than starting off with defence, a problem which has dogged the team throughout their two-year fall from grace. They’ve managed just two clean sheets in 16 games this season and have conceded at least two goals on 11 occasions, and the 29 goals they’ve conceded is less than only Luton Town and Barnsley.
This was their problem – well, one of them – in their final season in the Premier League, too, but they tightened things up in this regard to allow the fourth least goals in the Championship last season. Unfortunately, this resulted in them scoring less than a goal a game themselves, and only Bolton and Ipswich Town – who finished 23rdand 24th– scored less than them last season. For years the team has been dogged by a poor defence, and whenever they’ve looked to rectify it they’ve succeeded only in becoming defensive to the point of being unwatchable. If O’Neill is to avoid becoming the fifth manager in two years to be sacked, he’ll do well to find a way to find a way out of this vicious cycle for the club.
Football is a strange game at times, and Stoke aren’t the first team to find themselves spiralling after a stint in the Premier League via Freshfootball. For Stoke fans, management and players alike, however, this fall has been going on for a little too long. As the fifth manager since the beginning of last year – and the seventh if you count the caretakers – O’Neill has a serious task in front of him, but he has plenty of attributes as a manager that the team needs and has gotten off to a good start. With winnable games against Wigan, Cardiff and Blackburn to come, perhaps he can finally be the man to instil a bit of confidence back into the club.