Damp squib as Potters fail to spark
HE STOOD in the pouring rain, drenched in his suit. Alongside him Jurgen Klopp was wearing an anorak with the hood up, but Mark Hughes isn’t one to bow to the elements. Stoke’s manager isn’t one to bow to much, for that matter. Throughout his career as a player and manager, Sparky has always been up for a fight. No quarter given, none asked. Last night it rather felt as though he was on his own, though. Stoke may have beaten Chelsea — twice — and both Manchester clubs at home this season, but they failed to reach those heights against a Liverpool side who seemed more hungry to put one foot on the road to Wembley despite losing two men to injury before half-time. Hughes prowled around in the rain, gesticulating angrily at his players and referee Anthony Taylor in equal measure. His team were flat. So, strangely, was the Britannia Stadium. It’s been a while since it was the bearpit that greeted Premier League teams when Stoke came into the top flight in 2008. Teams used to dread coming here then. The wall of noise, the battery of set-pieces from Tony Pulis’s team of giants, the sense of brutal expectation each time Rory Delap wound up for a long throw-in. Hughes talks about the ‘crackle’ of games under the floodlights here but last night it was an oddly muted place. The Liverpool fans were making all the noise, but then again they had good reason to. Their team were ahead, playing the better football and creating the clearer chances. When Jordon Ibe fired them ahead before half-time, a red mist drifted across the pitch from a flare lit in the away end. It is perhaps to be expected after more than seven years in the Premier League that Stoke fans should have grown a little blase about their success. After all, they are a very different club now. Hughes has replaced Pulis and the team of 2015-16 are a definite upgrade on their predecessors, with the likes of Bojan Krkic, Marko Arnautovic, Xherdan Shaqiri and Ibrahim Afellay boasting Barcelona and Inter Milan as previous clubs. Who would have thought back then that Stoke’s squad would one day contain more Champions League winners than Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City’s squads combined? Quite remarkable. Only on this occasion, the players who had tormented Chelsea, United and City couldn’t deliver for their manager. There were too many misplaced passes, not enough zip in their play. Hughes named the same line-up for the fourth game in a row and the Potters looked flat. Bojan had a great chance to score in the first half when Shaqiri cleverly squared a corner to him but he completely fluffed his shot. Arnautovic glanced a header wide from a great position when Glen Johnson picked him out from the right, and then Johnson was denied an equaliser against his old club by a fine reflex save from Simon Mignolet. But that was about it in a first half in which Stoke would have expected to ask more of their opponents, certainly after they were disrupted by hamstring injuries to Philippe Coutinho and Dejan Lovren. It was perhaps no surprise after Hughes got to them at half-time that there was an immediate improvement. The manager re-emerged in an overcoat and it wasn’t the only change, with the introduction of Jonathan Walters for Geoff Cameron signalling more attacking intent. Joselu soon followed in place of the disappointing Bojan. It made little difference, though. Mignolet was largely untested, apart from turning over a deflected effort from Joselu late in the game. Defeat means Hughes and his players have it all to do at Anfield in three weeks’ time. A man who had won all nine semifinals he appeared in as a player will not need reminding that he stands on the brink of four successive defeats at the same stage as a manager. One thing is for sure. Hughes will be up for the fight again on Merseyside. He can only hope that his players are too.