Stoke City exhibited further evidence of the form that has transformed them into promotion contenders by ending Cardiff City’s tenuous grip on pole position with an emphatic victory last night.
The win, the fifth in succession for Tony Pulis’s side, coupled with Preston North End’s draw against Coventry City, ensured that the leadership of the Coca-Cola Championship changed hands for the first time since mid-September. Stoke remain in the top six.
Pulis stuck with a winning side and resisted the temptation to recall Ricardo Fuller after the striker’s completion of a three-game suspension or to give his latest loan signing, Patrik Berger, a full debut.
It was the introduction of Fuller shortly after the break, however, that saw Stoke replace their errant finishing of the first half with a salvo of three goals in almost as many minutes.
If Fuller’s arrival was wholly predictable, the effect it had on the game was anything but. “We looked very comfortable for the first hour,” Dave Jones, the Cardiff manager, said. “If anyone was going to score, I thought we would. We weren’t ourselves in the last half an hour, too many players lost their discipline.”
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Not least Stephen McPhail, the Cardiff midfield player, who was sent off for a cuff on Lee Hendrie. Jones made no attempt to excuse his player but was incensed by Hendrie’s suggestion that he had been on the receiving end of a haymaker.
“Stevie was wrong to do what he did and deserved to be sent off,” Jones said. “But I’d rather he was sent off for a good right hook because he [Hendrie] went down as though he had been hit by a sledgehammer. That’s unacceptable and the boy’s got to take a long hard look at himself.”
Jones is confident that his side are capable of picking themselves up off the canvas after this defeat, although that may not have been necessary had Cardiff not wasted the chance to deliver a potential knockout blow of their own in the eighteenth minute.
That it took the visiting team so long to mount their first attack of substance was perhaps evidence of faltering confidence in the ranks after a dip in form that had seen them win once in four outings.
Yet there was no disputing the self-assurance of Paul Parry, who created the chance from which Michael Chopra should have given Cardiff the lead. Parry feigned to go past Andy Griffin before cutting inside the left back and finding Chopra with a deft chip. Scoring looked the easiest option for the forward but his header was weak as well as wayward and the ball dribbled back across goal and past the far post.
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“It was a fantastic chance,” Pulis said. “We were glad to get to half-time with the score goalless. One or two of my players tried to entertain the crowd and over-indulged.”
Having failed to do that before the break, Stoke succeeded in spectacular, if unexpected style after it. Fuller, set up by Mamady Sidibe, began the turnaround by sliding the ball across the previously untested Neil Alexander and into the far corner of his net.
Sidibe was similarly isolated when Fuller turned provider five minutes later, driving the ball home via the hapless Alexander’s right hand.
In between times, another of Pulis’s loan players, Liam Lawrence, scored his first goal for his temporary club by thumping the ball into the net after it had been driven low into the six-yard box.
Stoke City (4-4-2): S Simonsen — A Griffin, M Duberry, D Higginbotham, C Hoefkens — L Lawrence (sub: P Berger, 67min), D Russell, S Diao, L Hendrie (sub: D Brammer, 88) — M Sidibe, V Péricard (sub: R Fuller, 53). Substitutes not used: L Buxton, C Hill. Booked: Duberry.
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Cardiff City (4-4-2): N Alexander — K MacNaughton, D Purse, R Johnson, A Wright — P Parry, S McPhail, J Ledley (sub: M Kamara, 66), R Scimeca — M Chopra, S Thompson (sub: K Campbell, 76). Substitutes not used: M Howard, K Cooper, C Gunter. Booked: Johnson, Chopra, Thompson. Sent off: McPhail.
Referee: M Riley.