Last nights game was as much about Stoke playing well as us playing badly. They had nothing to lose they got stuck in and played far more expansively than you would expect for a team in 15th in the championship. Look at Boro’s result last night. We won that’s all you have to do in a cup tie.

Clearly the weather conditions were not good, but there were several things wrong last night.

The formation did not look right, particularly on our left hand side. Was Zaha playing left wing or off Mateta ? It wasn't clear to me and the support given to Adaramola in terms of having an out ball was often limited.

It does seem to me that we are trying to move towards a more fluid style of football being less reliant on a target man. I assume that is the main reason Mateta is being given a decent run, and that in general Benteke is not playing. There was some evidence of this against Watford. But the team needs the players to do this. One of Gallaghers many qualities is that he is always trying to get on the front foot when getting the ball, looking to pass forward or running off the ball into space off Olise or Ayew. But when he is not playing we revert to sideways and backward passing that we saw yesterday and are then reliant on either a great pass from the centre backs or a bit of individual play from Olise or Zaha to free up some space. If that doesn't happen we become very sterile. Yesterday the players weren't able or willing to make the runs into space so we started playing target man football upto Mateta and this is just not his strength.
Hopefully we can make these changes but it does worry me that when Gallagher goes we wont have the personnel to play this more fluid football.

Apart from our two centre backs,Conor Gallagher and Michael Olise the remainder who played last night are only championship standard.

Mateta has the worst first touch since I can't remember when

Did you never see Adi Akinbiyi ??

The other day I questioned whether this group of players had it in them to ' win ugly '. Got my answer last night !

The starting eleven was interesting and maybe gave us an insight as to where Olise could end up playing as he progresses. However we didn't look a cohesive unit against a determined, well organised opponent.

I thought Tayo did well at left back, especially as it appeared that Wilf was in a strop right from the start, and rarely helped him out when he needed an outlet. If he keeps developing he can provide real competition for Mitchell.

The enigmas that is Benteke showed better touched in his 5 minute cameo than Mateta did in the previous 85/90.

Bottom line - we're through despite a below par performance

Old, Ungifted and White

I never expected a rout, in actual fact I predicted 1-0 but I did expect us to more dominant against a Stoke side with 1 win in their previous 8 league games.
There was nothing between the teams and our defensive woes continued.