Stoke v Burnley - Player Ratings

[Hbclaret007]

I agree with most of Dark cloud's review. I thought we were sloppy in the first half and should have looked to slow things down.
We certainly improved in the second half and could easily have won it. Stats look good. We would have been punished by a better team, but still a good point.

Pope 7 - Agree with others about his keeping and control of the area. His kicking is very poor and is letting down his overall performance
Lowton 8 - Lots of good play with a great ball for the goal.
Long 8 - Did well again and coped with the physical threat of Stoke
Tarks 6 - Trying to look assured and was caught out a couple of times for being just too casual. Poor distribution too. He plays better alongside Mee.
Ward 5 - He is struggling at the moment and might benefit from a rest. - Gave the ball away too often and was out of position a couple of times.
Westwood 7 - Overall pretty good. Again guilty of giving the ball away cheaply first half (unlike him). Improved second half
Cork 7 - Another good effort. Worked very hard winning second balls - especially in the second half.
JBG 8 - Very good indeed. Always looked dangerous. Great free kick first half and very unlucky not to win it for us.
Lennon 5 - Still struggled today. I'm not sure why he coming inside all the time. I'd like to see him out wide and running at defenders. He lacks confidence, but needs to have more of the ball.
Barnes 6 - Good poacher's goal. Should have done much better one on one in the first half when he tried to curl a glory goal. Completely stupid challenge which could easily have had him sent off. Glad he was taken off today.
Wood 6 - Struggled again with physical defenders. We seem to have stopped playing the ball into the channels for him to run onto. I felt we looked to get the ball forward too quickly at times in the first half without giving wood the opportunity to make runs.

[quoonbeatz]

pope - 7 safe hands and the deflection off long for the goal put it in the one spot he couldn't get to

lowton - 7 nice to see him have a shot

long - 8 thought he was very good again with one top drawer saving tackle

tarkowski - 6 finally getting his head on crosses. his problem when long comes into the team isn't that he needs mee alongside him but its that he gets shifted to the left hand side and as a result, just as was the case with keane, his game suffers a bit from it.

ward - 4 looked like he picked up an injury in the first half against chelsea and was junk yesterday, possibly as a result

lennon - 5 didn't offer much

westwood - 8 mixed first half where he gifted them a decent opportunity but also put two excellent balls over the top to barnes and wood. superb cross for the goal.

cork - 7 did more of the dirty work than westwood and they worked well together again

jbg - 8 four good efforts on goal and drove our attacking play

barnes - 6 right place right time for the goal but little else

wood - 6 similar to barnes without a goal, service to both wasn't exactly great though

would have been nice to seal european qualification with a win and our second half showing certainly deserved that. unfortunately the first half balanced it out when we looked like we were suffering a bit of a hangover from thursday.

better get used to that.

can't quite believe that i've watched us go from the imminent disaster of 1987 to the brink of europe. thats quite a 31 years and i wouldn't change it for the world.

[Rhxdes]

Pope 6

Lowton 7
Long 7
Tarkowski 6 - gone a bit big time since his England call up
Ward 5 - poor again

Lennon 5 - poor again
Westwood 7
Cork 6
Gudmundsson 7 - should have won it for us late on

Wood 6
Barnes 6