Comment by Martin Smith

YOU almost have to feel sorry for Rafa Benitez. He goes off an a brave, though rather unexpected, tirade against the man who runs English football, sorry, I mean Alex Ferguson, and then he watches his team run into a brick wall of a Stoke City performance to eave his team’s title credentials looking decidedly suspect.

It doesn’t matter that what the Liverpool boss said was all depressingly true, he’s now drawn himself into a war of words he can only win if his own team become Premier League Champions at the end of the season. On the evidence of what we saw at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday that prospect seems unlikely.

A lot of the media were quick to put Liverpool’s failure to win down to their own failings but to do only that would be to do Tony Pulis’s Potters something of an injustice. Stoke were pretty good against Liverpool and were well worthy of the plaudits that came their way from many quarters. The Mail on Sunday was fulsome in their praise of Stoke and called our first half performance “truly magnificent”. They weren’t wrong.

Despite our modest run of results in recent weeks the team went out against Liverpool with fire in their bellies and belief in their hearts. That’s pretty much all I ever really ask for from my Red and White striped heroes and they delivered in fine style.

That was the sort of endeavour and commitment that made me belief we could beat the drop earlier this season and it’s the standard we have to maintain if we are to remain a Premier League side for 2009/2010.

It’s no good turning out the goods, as we have done, for the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool, but then falling flat on our faces against Blackburn and West Ham, and not playing to our best against Hull and Fulham. No team in the world can be at the peak of their performance for every single game of the season but we do have to keep our standards high for all of the games and not just the big occasions. The points that will likely keep us up this season are those we take off the teams around us in the lower half of the table.

That result against Liverpool was just the tonic the club needed. We were in danger of losing our way after our recent run of league results and that embarrassing FA Cup exit against Hartlepool. Now though we have the chance to put those things behind us and, with the help of the extra new signings that are still to come, look forward to what needs to be done between now and the end of the season.

The 0-0 draw at The Brit showed everything that was good about Stoke, the areas in which we desperately need to be strengthened and the one managerial flaw that still worries me about TP.

The strength of the team through the middle was there for all to see, as was the commitment to the cause. These are key to our success and our survival and they were to the fore against Liverpool. The weaker side of our game was exposed though and that is just how lightweight we are in attack. Scoring goals against great teams is really hard but we have to improve on a record of just eighteen league goals.

Kitson is coming back and may have scored that second half header with a few more games under his belt but after that we’re bereft of options. Ricardo Fuller will be back soon and Mamady Sidibe may soon come back into the equation but it’s clear to see that we still need new faces in this area. We can but hope that the James Beattie deal goes through this week, or at least any other deal for a top class goalscorer.

As for the one area that did give me cause for concern, it was the news that TP had intended to start the game with Salif Diao and only brought Whelan back into the frame when Diao injured himself in the early warm-up. I’ll admit to being a fan that doesn’t agree at all with our manager’s assertion that Salif Diao is the “best holding midfielder” in the Premier League and have been a little disappointed with his contribution so far this season. In fact, I also think we’ve seen the very best of Amdy Faye ever since Diao got injured!

Without wanting to claim that Glenn Whelan is the best thing since sliced bread (because he isn’t), I can’t understand how he was going to get dropped to bring Diao straight back in after injury? Have we not had enough problems recently with playing players who aren’t fully fit? I don’t think it looks too good when we are bringing back an unfit player for a key game against the league leaders, who then promptly goes and shows that he’s not recovered by breaking down in the warm-up!

TP has a steadfast devotion to certain players and it often worries me that he will change things around to accommodate them even when the circumstances don’t appear right. It’s just a minor gripe but one that gets my goat at times and I know is a bug-bear for other Stokies.

That one small issue aside, we can’t help but feel a little more confident about our long term prospects after that result and display and we now have to see what we can get from the trips to Chelsea and Spurs in the next two weeks. These look to be amazingly difficult fixtures on paper but if Stoke play to their strengths and they catch either side at anything less than their very best then who knows what could happen?

For all of their occasional flaws and lapses, you can never write-off this Stoke side.