I hate Stoke. Actually, I hate Stoke fans. Singing about Aaron Ramsey on Saturday typifies them, they hate us because … er … Ryan Shawcross broke Ramsey’s leg, and they blame him somehow, I think it’s because he refused to accept Shawcross’s apology for breaking his leg with a horrendous tackle or is it because Shawcross was so upset after breaking Ramsey’s leg with a horrendous tackle that his actual Mum had to pick him after his terrible afternoon? Anyway, I enjoyed Ramsey scoring against them a couple of seasons ago and I especially enjoyed beating them this weekend.
Clearly, they are still exactly the same team under Mark Hughes (who naturally didn’t hear the Ramsey songs), Charlie Adam stamping on Alexis in the lead up to Iwobi’s goal, but this time no real harm was done, only for him to lose Iwobi who scored. Also, their keeper spent most of the game time-wasting, until they were losing, then he sped things up slightly much to the frustration of the Arsenal fans – this went unpunished by Lee Mason of course, no yellow card, just several talkings to: ‘ok, this is your last, last, last, last, LAST chance lad’.
Anyway, enough about those f*ckers, we found ourselves 1-0 down after a Tottenham style penalty was awarded by referee Phil Mitchell after Joe Allen fell over in the box, the aforementioned Charlie Adam despatched the resulting spot kick, sending Cech the wrong way. Shkodran Mustafi had limped off in the first half and is said to be out for around three weeks, Bellerin came on and swapped with stand in right back Gabriel who partnered Koscielny in the middle. Their goal woke us up slightly, and just before the break Theo scored our first goal of the game after Hector, on his comeback, centred for Theo to volley home at the near post. After the break, Ozil scored our second with an audacious header over their keeper before Iwobi scored our third to finish the job off.
A decent three points, and another weekend where our rivals and Spurs all dropped points, apart from Chelsea. City lost, Liverpool drew and Spurs lost to Man United. We have Everton tomorrow night away, which again, won’t be easy, then we travel to City next Sunday for the late game. Exciting times, and a chance to make a real statement this week.