Potters do fans proud in defeat (From Northwich Guardian)

Stoke City 0 Manchester United 1

8:23pm Friday 26th December 2008

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SOMETIMES even in defeat you can be proud of your team - and I think today should be one of those days.

We just took on the reigning European champions, just back from adding the world club title to their list of shiny trophies.

And we held them until very late in the game, despite losing Andy Wilkinson, who was sent off for two bookable offences.

I won’t be offering opinions on whether those two yellow cards were deserved until I’ve seen Match Of The Day tonight and certainly won’t be indulging in the ‘he should be ashamed of himself’ antics of Mr Stellings on Sky Sports News.

We know that Ricardo had a fantastic chance in the first minute of the match, but you won’t catching me berating him for the miss.

The man cannot keep us up alone. We need another goalscorer. And fast.

So far this season we have played all the so-called top four, winning one game, drawing once and coming within seven minutes of a deserved point.

Ian Probert

Given Pulis’ sensible decision to restore Ryan Shawcross to central defence Wilkinson was an obvious choice at right back in Griffin’s absence.

Rory Delap and Danny Pugh on the right and left respectively is a better choice than Delap and Cresswell. Not daring, not attack minded, but this is Tony Pulis and we were playing Manchester United.

Shame we didn’t hold out for a point, but we should still be proud.

So far this season we have played all the so-called top four, winning one game, drawing once and coming within seven minutes of what sounds like a deserved point.

We have been beaten heavily at Old Trafford, which happens to teams better than Stoke. We were outplayed an beaten at home to Chelsea, whose reserves probably cost more than our entire squad.

Yet again, we have proved we are capable of giving a game to anyone in this league.

Not outplaying them or out-footballing them, but only a stupid person would expect us to do that.

Given the team spirit we have and the willingness of Peter Coates to back his manager, there is still reason to be optimistic about 2009. It will be tough, but what else did we expect?