The season starts with an away loss

Stoke City started their season away at Southend on Saturday with a 1-0 loss and judging by the match reports despite some hard work in midfield never looked like scoring.

We have signed defender Danny Higginbotham from Southampton who seems to be a good player but we are lacking a decent central midfielder and a proven goal scorer. Hopefully Tony Pulis will sign a few players before the August transfer window deadline.

Other good news is that AWOL striker Sammy Bangora finally turned-up on Friday (4th Aug) a mere five weeks late! Be interesting to see if we play him or sell him quickly as he is very unreliable at returning from international games.