New-look Potters, but same old faults

ROOT and branch reform, they said. A glorious new dawn. So why are Stoke City in the same old mess?

Turgid performances. Poor results. Fingers pointed at divisive owners and abuse hurled in the direction of a beleaguered manager.

It could be 2022, or 2021, or in fact any year since the Potters tumbled out of the Premier League.

Those fallow years have established Stoke as masters of the mediocre, doyens of disappointment, a side blessed with some of the wealthiest owners in the business but perennially incapable of making it count.

Sixteenth in their first Championship campaign, they subsequently finished 15th, 14th and 14th again before settling comfortably back into the familiar environs of 16th last term. Like a bad driver, Stoke just won’t shift from the middle of the road.

This year was supposed to be different. Nineteen players in. Twenty players out. Eight new faces in key backroom roles.

“The scale of the changes - to the academy, recruitment, even to the stadium - is completely off the charts,” said manager Alex Neil. “Everything has been refreshed.”

Yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. Stoke, jeered off after a late defeat at Plymouth, finished last week in 20th position, having won just six times and scored 19 goals in as many games.