[Lord Snooty]

Huddersfield Town v Stoke City
The Premier League
Boxing Day - 15:00 ko
at the John Smith's Stadium

Huddersfield Town welcome Stoke City to the John Smith's Stadium for our Boxing Day fixture. And this meeting will mean that we will now have played every one of our Premier League opponents this season. Quite frankly, none of them are worth worrying about, even those so called Big 6. Despite some one sided scorelines along the way, nobody has given us a proper tonking. Arsenal got five yes, but we were in it for most of the match. Liverpool the same, we could've got something from that. We beat Man Utd and we almost took something off City. Chelsea didn't let us have much of the ball, but it was hardly a thraping. Spurs came here and....... oh yes, we have had a proper tonking!      

Anyway, Stoke come here on the back of a morale boosting home win over the Baggies, whereas we come into this match having taken 4 points from the 2 away games at Watford and Southampton. Our bruised and abused goalkeeper Jonas Lössl is expected to be passed fit for this one, his abuser has been hit by karma in the form of a hamstring injury and a violent conduct charge. We don't appear to have any other injury worries, so it will be the usual squad rotating from David Wagner with the available again Jonathan Hogg returning probably at the expense of Danny Williams. Probably one or maybe both of the full backs will be shuffled around and possibly the two men at the top of the order, Laurent Depoitre and Steve Mounié.

As for the Potters, they will still be without Erik Peters, Kevin Wimmer taking his left-back spot. Tom Edwards is likely to keep his place with Glen Johnson out. Bruno Martins Indi and Jese Rodriguez are also out injured.

A brief history of Stoke City: They were founded in 1863 as Stoke Ramblers, the second oldest professional club (behind Notts County) and founder members of the Football League. Stoke-on-Trent gained city status in 1925 and so the club name became Stoke City.
They had by now moved into their home at the Victoria Ground in 1919, where they would stay until the move to what is now known as the bet365 Stadium in 1997. In 1932 a young 17 year old winger made his debut, he would go on to be one of the world's greatest players, Stanley Matthews. Although they didn't win owt, they were now in this pre war period considered to be one of the country's top clubs.
In the first season after the war they came closest they have ever come to a league title when they lost their final game of the season to allow Liverpool to take the title. This may or may not have been due to the club selling Matthews to Blackpool shortly before. He would return in 1961 and helped them to promotion back to the first division and then in 1964 they reached their first cup final, the League Cup, losing to Leicester City.
Here's a picture of him playing against Huddersfield Town at the Victoria Ground.

They did eventually win summat in the 70s. Their first major trophy arrived in 1972 when they won the League Cup, beating Chelsea 2-1 with goals from Terry Conroy and George Eastham. This was under the management of Tony Waddington who was in charge of the Potters from 1960 to 1977.
When he left they jumped on the managerial merry go round and things deteriorated so much that the next trophy they won was the Football League Trophy, meaning they had dropped to the 3rd division by the time they beat Stockport County in the 1992 final. They moved to the new stadium in 1997 and won it again in 2000, beating Bristol City 2-1. Won the play offs the following year, beating Brentford (who had beaten us in the semis) in the final and eventually won promotion to the Premier League in 2008 with Tony Pulis in charge and have been there ever since.
In 2011 they reached their first ever FA Cup final, but lost 0-1 to Manchester City.

Head to Head



Stoke lead in the overall head to head with 26 wins to Town's 21, with 24 draws.

Only one stand out match to report on. It was of course during the famous Great Escape season as Peter Jackson and Terry Yorath plotted our survival strategy from what looked like certain relegation. This would be our first win of the new era, kick starting a run of 5 wins in 7 games, including the famous 1-0 win at Maine Road. This match however didn't get going until the second half when new signing Lee Richardson scored in the 46th minute. Stoke equalised but then Marcus Stewart put us back in front. As injury time took hold, the crowd were desperate to see this first win of the season, but Stoke were pressing for an equaliser. They sent the keeper up for a corner, but as the ball cleared it fell to Paul Dalton. He was still in his own half but there was an open goal ahead. He took the ball on and with Jacko chasing him up the touchline shouting "SHOOT!", he eventually did just as the covering defender made a last ditch tackle. The ball seemed to take an eternity to reach the goal but it did and just as the defender looked like he would get back, the ball crossed the line and nestled in the back of the net to send the home fans wild.

We did the double over them that season and instead of us going down, which looked nailed on early on, it was Stoke who got relegated, alongside Reading and Manchester City. That away game was a 2-1 Town win and was my one and only visit to the Britannia Stadium. Goals came early that day for us, we were 2-0 up in quarter of an hour, Paul Barnes opening the scoring before Stewart added another. They got a consolation in the 90th minute.
A couple of seasons before, we played them at home over the New Year weekend and it wasn't that memorable a 1-1 draw, apart from our goal which was an own goal from their keeper, Mark Prudhoe, who made a complete arse of a back pass and sliced it into his own net. He later denied it was an own goal as he completely missed the ball. Either way, mate. It's your cock up.      

I went once to the Victoria Ground. That was for a dull League Cup 0-0 draw in the early 80s. And I saw another dull goalless draw with them in 1971, an FA Cup replay. After we drew 3-3 at theirs, we drew at home and then lost the second replay at Old Trafford (neutral venues back then). The only remarkable thing about that goalless game was the size of the crowd, with 40,363 squeezing into Leeds Road for what would be the second highest of the season, beaten only when the "Champions of Europe" came visiting.






So what's happening down Stanley Matthews Way?  Managed nowadays by Mark Hughes, the..... I usually pick out a small club from their past here to make out they don't have that much credibility, but his CV is littered with the giants of Europe. He played for Manchester United, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Chelsea, before ending his career with Southampton, Everton and Blackburn Rovers. In management, he started by managing Wales, for whom he had gained 72 caps in his playing career. Then Blackburn, Man City (just as the money men arrived and wanted to bring Roberto Mancini in), Fulham, QPR and then took on the reins at Stoke in 2013.
His honours list is long too. Two Premier League titles, four FA Cup winners medals, three League Cups, two Cup Winners Cup winners medals (scoring twice in a 2-1 win for Man Utd over Barcelona in 1991).
All these honours though were as a player. As a manager, he's won sod all, because despite all his experience, he's crap and will probably be sacked soon after we beat the bugger in this match.

Notable players in their squad:- Peter Crouch, is probably the most well known of their squad. Most notable for being tall, red and his feet stick out o' the bed. He started his career at Spurs but they sold him to QPR, where in 2001 he got relegated alongside us to the 3rd division. So he got sold to Portsmouth, who then sold him on to Aston Villa, who loaned him out to Norwich before selling him to Southampton. Once again he got relegated, followed by another big money move, this time £7m to Liverpool. His start at Anfield wasn't that great, taking 19 games to get his first goal.
It was during his time there that he met his wife, model and future Strictly Come Dancing star Abbey Clancy, which sparked the question "What first attracted you to the millionaire footballer.....?" He also got picked to play for England and became famous for his own unique style of dancing. After Liverpool he went back to Portsmouth and then back to Spurs before landing in Stoke in 2011. He's made the most appearances of his career at Stoke, 186 so far, but that's not as good as it sound as 143 of those were coming on from the bench, a Premier League record.

,

What first attracted you to the millionaire footballer.....?

Recent form: Town are 11th in the Premier League with 22 points, Stoke are 14th with 19 points.

Last 6 matches:

Arsenal 5-0 Town
Everton 2-0 Town
Town 2-0 Brighton (Mounié 2)
Town 1-3 Chelsea (Depoitre)
Watford 1-4 Town (Kachunga, Mooy [2, 1 pen], Depoitre)
Southampton 1-1 Town (Depoitre)

Stoke 0-3 Liverpool
Stoke 2-1 Swansea (Shaqiri, Diouf)
Tottenham 5-1 Stoke (Shawcross)
Burnley 1-0 Stoke
Stoke 0-3 West Ham
Stoke 3-1 West Brom (Allen, Choupo-Moting, Sobhi)


Stoke's line up at home to West Brom on Saturday:

1 Jack Butland - ex Leeds keeper who now plays for England
42 Tom Edwards - 18 year old right back
17 Ryan Shawcross - captain with well over 300 apps for the Potters
6 Kurt Zouma - French international centre back on loan from Chelsea
5 Kevin Wimmer - Austrian international centre back signed from Spurs
24 Darren Fletcher - ex Man Utd Scottish international
20 Geoff Cameron - USA international defensive midfielder
22 Xherdan Shaqiri - born in Yugoslavia, plays for Switzerland
4 Joe Allen - Welsh international midfielder
10 Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting - born in Germany, plays for Cameroon
25 Peter Crouch - will surely be on Strictly when he hangs his boots up

Substitutes
9 Saido Berahino - born in Burundi but played youth football for England
14 Ibrahim Afellay - Dutch international winger
16 Charlie Adam - Scottish international midfielder
18 Mame Biram Diouf - ex Man Utd Senegal international
32 Ramadan Sobhi - Egypt international winger
33 Lee Grant - ex Derby, Burnley and Wednesday keeper
36 Harry Souttar - 19 year old Scottish defender, still to make his Stoke debut





Town's recent Boxing Day results:
2016: Town 2-1 Nottingham Forest (Palmer, Mancienne og)
2015: Town 3-1 Preston North End (Huws 2, Wells)
2014: Rotherham 2-2 Town (Vaughan, Coady)
2013: Town 1-1 Derby (Paterson)
2012: Town 1-1 Blackpool (Gerrard)
2011: Town 1-0 Chesterfield (Rhodes)
2010: Town 0-1 Hartlepool

Six Boxing Day games unbeaten then since losing at home to Hartlepool. Before that we lost at Carlisle. Nice to see our Christmas opponents are gradually getting bigger and better. Can we have Liverpool, or one of the Manchesters next please?


Merry Christmas everybody: Let's finish on a seasonal sing song. Walking in a Wagner Wonderland.

All together now.......

[theo_luddite]

Having helped that old fart Santa out again, is he overhyped or what? I'm partaking of the waters in a few of Halifax's finest and oldest refreshment houses. Just a warm up for tomorrow and Boxing Day you will no doubt understand. Tomorrow of course I will be confined to family barracks after a quick Schniffter for an appetizer, but a bottle or so of vin rouge will make up for the annual landlords night off.

Another reet riveting read M'lud and a Happy Christmas to all our readers and writers.
I would have put a Flashing Santa smilie in here but they won't come up on my phone. Pfft.

[jjamez]

I think he'll start hogg and mounie, but I cant help but feel he'll get bullied by shawcross and may be better suited to going against long at Burnley. Then again I'd want lolo up against both sides because he just causes problems. Think ince may have his game that we've been longing for. Think stoke have proven their own downfall, losing fletcher and having an old side ala crouch and Johnson, whilst not really bringing that much in

[Amelia Chaffinch]

We've got a decent record on Boxing Day, then.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Ince gets his first with help from Quaner. 1-0.

[Lord Snooty]

Cracking first half. Great play from Big Col to set up Ince.
And what a series of saves in succession from Lossl. Apparently the ball was 90% over the line.

[Lord Snooty]

Good game. Should've won, but didn't. Plenty of chances. If that one from Joe Lolley had gone in in the last minute it would've been epic.

[JUSTASILLYOLDGIT]

Effectively clumbsy is how I would describe Quanar. And I mean that in a good way! Don't think defenders can guess which direction those legs are going to go in. And he's no slouch when he works it out himself! Just a shame he didn't look up before shooting on a couple of occasions today. Could have rolled Mounie and Ince in on goal. I think it has to go down as two points dropped today, but we are chipping away at that target points haul, so not too disappointed.  

[Lord Snooty]

Just got to say; Mark Hughes is a total and utter cockwomble!

[Lord Snooty]

You can add the name of Danny Murphy to the cockwomble list! What is he looking at? Mooy was clearly brought down for the penalty we didn't get. And Schindler never touches the Stoke player. I might be biased myself, but in this case, no I am not. There is no contact between Schindler and Chopper Mooting or whatever he's called.
And if you want foul play going unpunished, what about Crouch holding Schindler back when he's about to cut out the cross for their goal?

And as for the MOTD highlights. Pathetic really. This was an absolutely brilliant, pulsating, end to end, top class Premier league game with 33 efforts at goal combined and they show absolutely bugger all and spend more time on two penalty decisions than owt else. Match Of The Day, not fit for purpose.