Bolton Wanderers vs Stoke City Preview

Well, that was just awful. My prediction of a Stoke win didn't quite go to plan as we were thumped 5-0. You could say its revenge for Wembley, you could say its about time they got a bit of luck or you could say its about time Pulis changed his dinosaur tactics away from home.

It all began to go horribly wrong when Glenn Whelan was accused of a back-pass after Asmir Begovic picked up his pass, our opponents quickly took the indirect free-kick and Kevin Davies put them 1-0 up. That was the beginning of the end for the Potters, after more suicidal defending Chris Eagles put the home side 2-0 up. That's how the score remained until half time, maybe at this point Stoke fans believed deep down that we could get back into the game and put our awful away record behind. This was but a dream, as confirmed by Chris Eagles' second just past the hour mark. From this point it just went from bad to worse as Bolton added their fourth and fifth in the 73rd minute and 82nd minute.

So what went wrong? We'll start with the team selection. Huth should only play if he's at center back, Woodgate shouldn't play at all unless he has to, Palacios has to play instead of Whelan whether he's 75% fit or not and Jon Walters shouldn't be wasted on the wing. Last season we had a starting XI and barring injuries the team stayed the same, it worked and we got ourselves to an FA Cup final. Why is it that we seem to be changing our lineup each time we play in the league? The second problem is the manager, Pulis is far too negative away from home. He's always been like this, travelling with the thought that if we defend well enough we'll snatch a point. We're now in our fourth Premiership season and this isn't the mentality we should have, I'd rather lose trying to win than lose trying to keep it tight.

So yes, it was a very bad day at the office. But will Pulis do anything about it? Our next away game is at Blackburn, we lost 4-0 against struggling Sunderland, we lost 5-0 against struggling Bolton, surely we aren't going to get battered against Steve Kean's side too? If we do not get at least a point from that match then I will really start to get worried about the Premiership status of Stoke, we can't just rely on our home form, we need to start picking up points away from home more often which requires a complete mindset change from the manager.