The second half performance was much better, yet again, despite the half starting badly.

Luke Chadwick, on loan from West Ham, scored a cracking second for the home side, seemingly to make the tie safe. However, Mark Wright, a few minutes later, produced a cross which left Kevin James with a tap in to continue his excellent scoring record since arriving on loan.

Merson had decided to replace the out of his depth McDermott with Nicholls, and he began to trouble the Stoke defence, especially with his pace.

Nicholls hit the post and, towards the end, Ed de Goey, who had come on for the injured Sorensen, despite his age, made a great save to prevent the equaliser from Nicholls.

The criticism of the performance has to be that we just weren’t positive enough against a team playing with no confidence and in a really bad run of form. This was a very good opportunity lost.

To make things even worse on the day, the improving Bristol City beat Swansea at home and Blackpool beat Hartlepool away to leave the Saddlers just two points clear of the relegation zone and, looking the other way, 14 points behind Brentford in the last play off spot, having played the same number of games. Having gone out of two Cups in a week, the team need to get back to the bread and butter as quickly as possible.