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

YOU‘d think after 11 away defeats in the Premier League that Stoke’s latest loss would be greeted by little more than a mere shrug of the shoulders.

But Andy Wilkinson looked as though he‘d just reversed over the pet cat, or forgot his girlfriend’s birthday, after emerging ashen-faced from the aftermath of another blankety blank on the road.

“It’s just gutting again,” admitted Wilkinson, having just been shunted from tunnel to corridor to pokey little interview room by an over-officious health and safety jobsworth.

“We’ve started slowly again and it’s cost us again,” he said, reflecting on the 2-0 deficit that eventually proved too great for Stoke’s subsequent second-half revival.

“In the second half we were the better team by far. If we could have got the second goal they would have panicked even more because they were already on the back foot.

“And at 2-2, you never know,” he added, greedily eyeing the possibility of the victory which wouldn’t have been so far-fetched if only Stoke had levelled with sufficient time remaining. But there is no escaping the first-half showing that was clearly still vexing the spirited defender.

“We’ve just got to sort out the first half,” he continued. “We are not at the races for the first 20 minutes.

“They say their second goal is offside, but even so we shouldn’t be conceding there. It’s
a bit gutting.”

Stoke now face three home games in the next four, including Middlesbrough on Saturday, as the heat cranks up yet another couple of notches.

“Yeah, the next game is a massive game,” admits Wilkinson. “We’ve just got to focus on that and put this one behind us.“You have a day off after games like this and then get cracking again on the Monday.”

And he admitted that other results, together with the bottom half of the Premier League table, was compulsive Saturday evening viewing among the Stoke players.

“We are looking at the other scores nowadays. You get on the bus after a game and have them on the telly.

“It’s a bit of a bonus if the other scores have gone our way.”

A bonus confirmed once he’d boarded the bus home to see that every single result had gone Stoke’s way... bar the most important of all.