It was a Happy Easter for the Potters as they showed no Semi Final hangover or indeed pre Final nerves by putting in three assured performances to remain unbeaten over the holiday period taking in a respectable five points from games against Villa, Wolves and Blackpool.

A three game week was always going to be a worry on the back of such a monumental effort down at Wembley, but we prevailed unbeaten if not unscathed as we now look ahead to a home game against Arsenal before meeting Man City back down in the Capital for the FA Cup Final.

The week started at Aston Villa, a team finding a bit of form with a striker who is always dangerous in Darren Bent. It wasn’t our best performance but it was professional and ultimately worthy of a point as Kenwyne extended his rich vein of form by scoring directly from a Rory throw. Villa, despite protestations to the contrary, really didn’t give Begovic much trouble though and with one of their only chances managed an equaliser just before half time as Ryan was caught a little off guard by the impressive Bent who steered a header home by nipping in front of the City Captain.

We sometimes score from a throw in... © PA Photos

I’d have taken a point beforehand and to be honest, despite the lack of serious Villa pressure, I just felt that we looked a bit leggy and weren’t entirely at the races so this Stokie at least was happy enough with that. The next game however, I wanted to see an improved performance and expected 3 points from Mick McCarthy’s men who are fighting for Premier League survival down at the foot of the table. I’m not sure what the players ate or drank between the Villa game and Tuesday but they came flying out of the traps, chasing every single ball, closing down in packs and absolutely dominated the opposition. In terms of effort and wanting it, you’d be forgiven thinking it was Stoke who were desperate for the points as we didn’t let Wolves settle for a second and were peppering their defence from all angles, Pennant being particularly effective on the night.

On fire... © PA Photos

Despite a great performance though, the headlines from the game weren’t about Stoke securing their safety for another season but of Matty Etherington’s injury and how it would most likely keep him out for the remainder of the campaign. The misery and disappointment was etched on his face and he too knew that it was a bad one, I felt sick for him, but all credit to the team though after losing such a big player, they picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and stepped up to push on to a respectable win against our midlands rivals.

A huge blow... © PA Photos

The long week of Easter football culminated with a trip up to see us take on Blackpool on a day where the wind dictated much of what would unfold. It was a tale of two halves for each side as each played the best when they had it behind them, Blackpool in the first half and Stoke in the second, and that was pretty much the story for this game. Whitehead came into the middle and Rory, after an impressive cameo replacing Matty on the left only days earlier, picked up where he left off and had an excellent game out there as it finished 0-0 with Kenwyne missing a virtual open goal for our best chance. Much like the Manager, I’ll forgive him that one, having seen him score in his last four games he’s allowed to miss a chance every now and then, but how he did I’ll never know!

Huth’s upside your head... © Laurence Griffiths/GettyImages

So 5 points and another season of Premier League football to come isn’t a bad return for a difficult week where injuries started to catch up with us, there is also the small matter of an FA Cup Final on the 14th to look forward to. Whilst Higginbotham, Matty and Ric might not be playing in the showpiece event, it looks like whether we win or lose they might well have a European Tour to look forward to as Man City continue their quest for a top four finish at the expense of Spurs.

With that in mind, hopefully this Stokie will be dusting off his passport and hitting Google Translator for various Eastern European ways of singing ‘We Only Score From A Throw In’, the thought of Stoke and Delap in Europe is mouth watering and whilst we’re not quite there yet, it gives us something to think about as we round off one of the most successful season’s in the club’s long history.

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