Comment by Martin Smith

AFTER the enforced international break it’s back to business this weekend as Stoke play what for me at least is our most important fixture of the season so far.

If we can beat bottom-placed Portsmouth then we’ll blow away most of the doubt and negativity that’s descended around us.

However, if we extend this little mini-blip we’re currently experiencing then the questions will continue, and so will the worrying.

Forget that Pompey recently beat us 4-0 in the League Cup, and that they inflicted a similar scoreline over Wigan a few days later.

They remain one of the weaker teams in the Premier League and were despatched as such even by Blackburn in their most recent game.

This is a fixture that The Potters should be looking to win and that the majority of supporters will be expecting them to win.

The main thoughts occupying my own mind ahead of the weekend are going to be about the team we’ll play against Portsmouth.

I remain firmly of the opinion that we have been selling ourselves short in many of our games this season and now wait anxiously to see how we’ll line up.

We’re going to have one change forced upon us, with the suspension of Abdoulaye Faye, but will the manager think of making others?

I find myself especially intrigued about the likelihood of Liam Lawrence making the starting XI. Lately he has been overlooked in matches against Premier League opposition but seems fit enough and good enough to play against the likes of Italy and France.

It has been Lawrence’s absence, on so many occasions this season, that has most baffled me and, I think, many of my fellow Stoke supporters.

He remains, without any shadow of a doubt, someone who you’d consider to be a typical ‘Pulis-player’ and his presence in the team could be facilitated simply by moving Delap into the centre of the park and giving Dean Whitehead a chance to sit on the bench. I’m sure that’s a change that could only make us stronger. There, I’m off the fence on that one!

With season about to pass the one-third mark of games played it is imperative that we hit upon our best team as quickly as possible; one that offers us the best chance of progressing this season and one that can not only take a the lead in a game but then also hang onto it as well.

We DO have the players available to us within the ranks of our squad and the sooner we start playing that side the more relaxed we can all be.

Moving away from our own little world for a moment, I have to say how delighted I am to see the idea of inviting the ‘Old Firm’ has quickly evaporated, following on from Bolton chairman, Phil Gartside’s plan to invite them to join a newly restructured Premier League set-up comprising two 18-team divisions and the Glasgow pair.

Having once lived in Scotland for four years I’ll freely confess to having a very large soft spot for Rangers. However, that doesn’t blind me from much of what their supporters, and those of Celtic too, stand for and believe in.

I don’t want to turn up at matches to hear songs about Irish terror organisations and the last thing I’m interested in whenever I take to my seat at a football match is whether somebody is Protestant, Catholic or Jedi in their religious believes.

Such a move would be doomed to failure and as much can be seen by Celtic’s recent game at Falkirk where some of their supporters refused to observe a minute’s silence on Remembrance Day.

Can you imagine the consequences of such an action at an English football ground? Or a repeat of the mayhem seen when Rangers played that UEFA Cup final in Manchester two seasons ago?

Peter Coates has this one dead right. Our game has survived well enough for over a hundred years and the Premier League is booming without the Old Firm. We don’t need them and they have no place within the structure of English football.

Back to matters of more interest to Stoke supporters and another mention for our player of the season so far, Ryan Shawcross. How can it be that there appears to be no place for him at any level on the England international front at the moment?

It has to be said that his continued exclusion from any of our national squads means that someone is not doing their job properly.

This outstanding young defender is getting better and better with each passing week of the season. Last year it was often the case that Abdoulaye Faye’s experience was helping Ryan to get through games but that situation has flipped somewhat this season, with Shawcross now often being the rock against which his captain can occasionally lean.

Think of all of the gallant last-gasp blocks and clearances you’ve seen from the Stoke defence this season and almost all of them have come from Ryan Shawcross.

His presence grows all of the time and it is no surprise that newspaper rumours continue to link his name with a move to one of the bigger clubs.

It would be a sad indictment of our game if so talented a player as Ryan Shawcross is not being considered for a national call-up until he moves away from an unfashionable club like Stoke City. If you’re good enough then it doesn’t matter who you play for!

Okay, here’s to a positive line-up against Portsmouth, a decent display, three points and a genuine hope that I have nothing negative to write about next week! Wouldn’t that make for a very good weekend.