It’s the FA Cup, it’s the 4th Round, I think we all know what happens next, Stoke have struggled, over my lifetime certainly, to make any impression on this prestigious competition so my expectations weren’t exactly high for our home encounter with Arsenal. It was a good day for Stoke which was made even better by us winning the game comfortably and beating Arsenal at their own game with two sucker punch goals coming from quick counter attacks – in fact, had decisions gone our way the score could have been 5-0, I imagine Arséne would have moaned about more than the pitch had that happened though..

So it’s Stoke this time who grab the last minute goal – makes a nice change.. The game itself was woeful, Stoke seemed to regress to our most basic of tactics (if you can call them that) of hoofing the ball forward at any opportunity. Just when you think we are turning a corner with our style, we have a performance like that to bring us back down to Earth with an almighty thud, it was so disappointing, especially given that we looked so good against Fulham.

There's not been too much festive cheer in the Potteries after some poor results - ironically, the games against Villa and Man City have seen us play some of our best football this season and argueably last too - we just haven't taken our chances.