Stoke City 0-1 Bournemouth: Three things we learnt

Add as preferred source on Google

Stoke lack clinical edge

Mark Hughes’ team struggled to find a foothold in the game during a first half in which they simply failed to deal with the visitors’ dominance of possession. However, The Potters were much improved in the second period, especially in the closing twenty minutes following the introduction of Peter Crouch and Jonathon Walters was a front two, but were incredibly wasteful in front of goal and clearly lacked a clinical edge.

Bojan Krkic smashed his penalty against the underside of the bar, Xherdan Shaqiri blasted over from twelve yards out and Walters placed his close range header straight into the grateful arms of Bournemouth goalkeeper Adam Federici. Wilfried Bony failed to have any real impact on the game and he is continuing to struggle in his attempts to re-discover his goal scoring touch that made him one of the Premier League’s most threatening strikers whilst at Swansea City. The powerful Ivorian has scored just twice in ten appearances for The Potters, ironically both against former club Swansea last month, and against Bournemouth he failed to muster a single shot on goal. It is looking increasingly likely that he will return to Manchester City when his loan deal expires in the summer and there are already rumours that Stoke will be looking to sign Saido Berahino when the transfer window opens in January.

Stoke undoubtedly have a host of creative players in their squad but at they lack the clinical striker to add the finishing touch in the final third.