Poor With A Capital P – Ex-EFL Star Highlights Worrying Area Of Stoke City’s Game
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Former EFL star Adrian Clarke has blasted Stoke City’s off-the-ball efforts as rubbish and thinks that they would have been in the Championship relegation zone without goalkeeper Viktor Johansson.
Stoke appointed Mark Robins in January as their new manager after Narcis Pelech’s lacklustre brief spell as boss, but the veteran tactician has yet to steady the Potters’ ship as they are only five points from the relegation zone.
The Potters are struggling to find consistency under the new Stoke boss, having managed to win only two league games out of the nine and their goalkeeper Johansson has been a standout performer for them so far this season.
Clarke is of the view that Stoke have been very poor when they are not in possession of the ball and issued a word of caution that the signs are worrying for the Championship outfit, who are fighting to keep themselves up.
He pointed out that Johanssen has saved more goals than any other goalkeeper in the Championship and believes that it is due to the efforts of the Swede that they are not in the relegation zone.
When talking about Stoke City’s performances, Clarke said on What The EFL (22:13): “The signs are massively worrying for Stoke. Without the ball, they are poor, like with a capital ‘P’, rubbish!
“Johansson, according to statistics, have prevented an extra 16 goals this season.
“16, that is way, way, way more than anyone else.
“Shows you how busy he has been; apart from his heroics, they would be in the bottom three.”
Stoke are set to welcome Watford at home at the weekend and Robins will be hoping that his team will be able to bounce back from their back-to-back defeats in the league to winning ways.
While Watford have won their last two games on the spin, they still have a poor away record, with only four wins in 17 matches on the road, which should offer further encouragement for the Potters.
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