Saturday’s visit of Manchester United provides Mark Hughes’ Stoke side their first real test of 2017 in the league amid a period of form that is a welcome departure from the doom of gloom of the previous calendar year.
It has been a mixed week for the Potters that began positively — back in the top half of the table following the 3-1 victory over Sunderland in their last match. Since then, though, barely a day has passed without reports of Spanish talisman Bojan Krkic seeking a move amid rumoured interest from Middlesbrough.
The majority of fans are saddened at the prospect of losing such a talent, especially having seen him star so prominently once he found his feet in the league. Unfortunately, he appears to be a casualty of the manager seemingly abandoning his attacking principles in favour of a return to more rudimentary tactics to arrest a slump in form. Were a move to materialize, it would be difficult to see it as anything other than regression.
At the start of Hughes’ time at the club his side went from strength to strength and played the kind of football those in the stands were crying out for, having grown tired of the play on offer from Tony Pulis. After a horrendous 2016, though, that welcome evolution to the team’s approach has sadly started to show signs of turning full circle.
Perhaps the most central player to that original positive sea-change in style was Bojan, the poster boy of Hughes’ tenure and catalyst for other big-name signings that duly followed his path to the Potteries.
Reports in recent days would suggest that a departure looks likely, but the manager will have been doing his best to focus instead on the visit of his former side and how his current star player — Peter Crouch — can halt their impressive run of form.
Crouch is enjoying something of a renaissance at the club and has gone from barely featuring for two seasons to being first choice, and it’s a move that would appear to have paid off handsomely. Having scored in each of his last three league appearances, he sits on 99 top-flight goals, just one away from joining the fabled “100 club” — an elite group that, as things stand, contains just 25 names.
He will be mindful of the fact that just two of those 99 goals have come against Manchester United, but given his impending milestone the importance of this particular fixture will provide added impetus to the task that awaits.
At the other end of the pitch, captain Ryan Shawcross will be re-acquainted with another in-form veteran in Zlatan Ibrahimovic and much like the reverse fixture — a 1-1 draw on Oct. 2 — he will be looking to martial his defence to an equally disciplined performance. That will include the man behind him — Lee Grant — replicating the heroics that earned him a man-of-the-match award in that game to deny Ibrahimovic once more.
It’s perhaps surprisingly a fixture in which the Potters have enjoyed the upper hand in recent years, with two wins and a draw from their last three meetings at the bet365 Stadium. Hope indeed then for Hughes, who could achieve his own milestone of 50 wins as Stoke manager should his side manage to take all three points on the day.
The last meeting there between these two sides saw the Potters put in one of their best performances of last season — a 2-0 win on Boxing Day 2015 — in a game where, ironically, Bojan was given the man-of-the-match award. While it looks unlikely, with any luck he will be called upon once more to put in a performance befitting his ability to stake a meaningful claim for a long-term future at a club.
Despite what some may believe, it’s not an either-or situation when it comes to flair and hard work. In fact, the silky skills of Bojan mixed with some of the harder workers in the squad not blessed with his abilities is the kind of panacea Stoke should aim for. The manager would do well to avoid setting up camp at either end of the tactical spectrum and instead work to find that sweet spot in the middle where craft and graft can successfully coexist.
If he can manage to do that, he’ll reap the rewards from the breadth of the talents at his disposal and there’s no reason that process can’t start on Saturday.
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