Sorry Matthew Etherington, but you’re about to be picked on here. There was a lot wrong with Stoke yesterday, and Etherington wasn’t the worst offender – he merely produced the most the most easy-to-criticise moment.
Here’s the initial throw-in from which Villa’s first goal develops – Jordan Bowery receives the ball is pressured towards the touchline: there’s no danger. Additionally, there are five Stoke defenders in the immediate vicinity, and no one-two between Bowery and Matthew Lowton, the player taking the throw-in, should be able to cause any problems. It’s a huge numerical disadvantage.
Once Bowery has given the ball back to Lowton though, Etherington has been sucked-in and is oblivious to the right-back running beyond him.
Once the Villa player gets into the box, Etherington is behind him and really in no place to make a challenge and can’t really touch him without giving away a penalty. From there, he’s able to simply slide the ball into Gabriel Agbonlahor, who scores via a bit of pinball with Robert Huth.
This is Stoke in a nutshell at the moment: they’ve lost the cohesion that made them so difficult to beat, and their game is littered with sloppiness.
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