Season: 2009/2010   Match Date: 15/Aug/2009

by Martin Spinks
martin.spinks@thesentinel.co.uk

Stoke City 2
Burnley 0

TONY Pulis loves nothing better than to sink a good claret, but none will have tasted any sweeter than this one.

Declared favourites before the match – and 2-0 up midway through a game for the first time since April 2008 – Stoke had trespassed well beyond their comfort zone during the opening day of the Premier League season.

What followed was the perfect victory, as accomplished by a performance modest enough to prevent the kind of complacency the manager has long been warning against.

Nor was there any excuse, on this evidence, to shy away from the transfer business begging to be completed over the final fortnight of the summer transfer window.

There was even the added bonus of seeing just about every potential relegation rival come a cropper – one way or another – on the first
weekend of the season.

Stoke have already established meaningful daylight between themselves and the nation’s relegation favourites after Burnley succumbed to that oldest truth of all – games are won and lost in the penalty area.

Not for the first or last time in the Premier League, Stoke were almost happy to concede territory and possession in harmless areas in which the visitors would frequently play the more attractive football.

But there was only one winner where it mattered most as Stoke ruthlessly exploited the unavailability of three centre-halves from Burnley’s first-ever Premier League line-up.

Stoke’s midfield may have lacked numbers and craft, James Beattie may still be wrestling with the defensive side of his role-in-the-hole, Ricardo Fuller may have been a touch greedy on occasions and Abdoulaye Faye’s concentration was so wayward at times that he was lucky to escape a second booking for a needless second-half lunge.

But hand them a set-piece in tasty territory and we can still anticipate the kind of destruction twice imposed on Burnley with barely half-an-hour gone on their grand entry into the big time.

At six feet, five inches, Ryan Shawcross is a difficult man to mislay. But the visitors managed to momentarily lose all sight of him in the 19th minute, when he rose unchallenged to head Liam Lawrence’s left-wing free-kick across goalkeeper Brian Jensen and inside his right-hand post.

Much worse followed from the same direction 14 minutes later when Rory Delap, who will stack up more than 500 throws this season at his current rate, lobbed towards the near post for stand-in centre-half Stephen Jordan to glance inadvertently past his stranded and bemused keeper.

Not for the last time this week will you read the words Jordan and boobs in the same sentence.

It might even have been 3-0 by half-time – and how appropriate would that have been after trailing 3-0 by the break at Bolton on the opening day last season – but Clark Carlisle retreated in time to clear from beneath his own bar to prevent Ricardo Fuller’s looping header dropping in.

A lesser team than Burnley might have re-emerged disheartened after half-time and completely folded en route to a far more destructive defeat.

But they continued to prod, probe and create enough openings to suggest that one breakthrough might truly re-awaken and re-ignite the game as a genuine contest.

Perhaps their chance came and went shortly after the hour when Steven Fletcher galloped down the left and unleashed a shot Thomas Sorensen did well to divert around his near post.

Martin Paterson was denied any such opening on his return to the Britannia Stadium after frequently being deployed too wide, it seemed, to exploit that predatory nature of his which has earned him 33 goals in the last two seasons.

Stoke’s own options in attack appear far weightier at present after being afforded the luxury of saving a revitalised Dave Kitson until the final 20-odd minutes.

And he has never come closer to a first Stoke goal than he did 11 minutes from the end when, with arguably his side’s most eye-catching move of the day.

He controlled Danny Higginbotham’s chip towards the left edge of the penalty area, rolled his foot over the ball to gain half-a-yard on his marker, then shot powerfully on the half-turn to beat the keeper from a tight angle.

That the ball should ping off the top of the crossbar, not hit the back of the net, was nevertheless an encouraging sight for player and fans alike after enduring the kind of year that would have previously seen his shot more likely ping off the top of a ballboy’s head.

He can now rest assured that when he hears the word duck, it’s not a warning for fans to dive clear of his shooting, but a local term of endearment.