Interesting. They signed a young CB from Scotland about 18 months ago, Harry Souttar.
19 and was on loan at Ross County last year. Was on the bench for a couple of Stoke premier league games at start of the season.
He’s 6ft 6 and played 13 games for Ross County. Signed a 4 year contract with Stoke in January. Could be worth a punt as we don’t actually have 2 centre backs for our next match.
1800 there including a lively 1000 from staffordshire
Difficult to read too much into this game due to the heat and the fact that stoke had so much quality
Not too concerned about the result because over 86 minutes it was only a single goal difference
1st 4 mins the players clearly adjusting to playing 2 banks of 4 and the distances between them was wrong giving ample space for Barcelona players to play in and take their time to place shots. Keates got the distances changed and it looked more compact from there on in hopefully a lesson learned and that’s the point of these games.
Cypriot did ok but to be honest was no better than say Morris or Kouhyar he played wide left in the midfield 4 . He didn’t really help Leahy who looked awkward as left back. Best moves came down the right with Devlin and Ismail. Ismail probably the best player today with an ability to go past people.
Cooke is not very mobile and didn’t see any ability to go past a player but held the ball up well and looked an handful in the air but saying that I think we only sent in 1 high ball for him all game that I can recall. I would hope against lesser opposition we have more set pieces. Disappointed that Cooke and Baka had no link up but again up against top players.
Morris was awful messing up the best chances of the game he needs to go out on loan again to get some confidence.
The kids injected some energy with Candlin the stand out player but when I think about how Rico played against Chelsea there was no one any where near that sort of quality.
Kory Roberts was far and away the best defender today pity he didn’t come off with the other seniors
There’s nothing to panic about from the fifth minute Deano had them organised and they won’t be up against this quality in league one
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Stoke is a different planet. 
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Morris is an enigma but I hope he gets some help.
I’ve watched teams at all levels train but I’ve never seen any professional footballer scrutinise their kicking technique.
In cricket a batter will have their technique scrutinised. Their trigger movement, their feet, their head, their elbow - everything. All with a view to knowing where their off stump is and striking the ball in the middle of the bat.
You look at some of the great strikes in this World Cup. The Spanish and French full-back goals being the standouts for striking moving balls. Their technique in what is a really difficult skill is flawless. Their head, balance, knee all perfect.
Kieran tends to drag the ball. A sign of overbalancing or getting his standing foot too close to the ball. The equivalent of a golf or batting coach would study this and be working really hard on ironing out the flaws. I just dont know if we do that because all footballers believe they are good at kicking the ball in the direction they aim.
Morris is worth that kind of investment. When on song his pace and close control make him really hard to play against. All that is wasted though if his final ball or shots from around the D are poor.
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They say you cant judge a team off the back of a friendly … unfortunately with this current squad I think you can.
Poor poor defence , gaping hole in the middle of the park and a very immobile strike partnership.
At present this squad is a lot weaker than last season , minimum of 5 signings required.
Paddington: ‘1800 there including a lively 1000 from staffordshire’
As Walsall is ‘ceremonially’ in Staffordshire that’ll be pretty well all of the 1800 then.
One of the names mentioned in the E&S today. Him and Ryan Sweeney, ironically the player that collided with Kory in the incident that led to the injury.