Stuck Foke: A lot happened over the holidays for Stoke - mostly bad things

It’s been a few weeks since I last came with a Stuck Foke post, thanks in part to the holidays and the fact the fixture schedule this time of the season is pure trash. There’s a lot to get caught up on tracking UKIP’s favorite club, so let’s get right to it shall we?

Our last post was when Stoke got thrashed at home by West Ham and their former star player Marko Arnautovic - who celebrated his goal on his old ground like a man very relieved to be away from the bet365 Stadium (which is easily the silliest name for a stadium in the league). Here’s what these red striped morons have done since then:

Saturday, December 23rd: Stoke City 3-1 West Brom

Stoke took advantage of a club who was - and still is - mired in a relegation battle (and let’s not speak of the fact that Arsenal collected a cool two whole points away at these two clubs this season) by casually dismissing the Baggies and finding themselves up to 14th place in the table.

Oh noes! Stoke moving four places above the relegation zone and staying roughly around that position does this entire thing I’m doing here no favors whatsoever. Let’s see if they kept up this form, yeah?

Tuesday, December 26th: Huddersfield Town 1-1 Stoke City

Better, I suppose? At least they didn’t win.

But even with dropping two points to Patrick Stewart’s favorite club Stoke moved up to 13th in the table thanks to Crystal Palace, Newcastle, and Southampton losing this matchweek. Fuck. This is decidedly not a good thing.

Saturday December 30th: Chelsea 5-0 Stoke City

Yes. This is far more like it. No one other than the most delusional thought Stoke was going to walk in to Stamford Bridge and get anything out of it. The -5 goal differential hit, however, was a nice thing to take away from the match.

The other good thing about Stoke getting stomped? Bournemouth defeated Everton (taking them level in points with Stoke, but ahead in the table due to Bournemouth’s superior goal differential), and Southampton drew versus a dreary Manchester United (also taking them level in points with Stoke, and also ahead of Stoke due to goal differential). Newcastle and Crystal Palace both secured draws, keeping the two of them just a single point behind Stoke.

When the dust settled, Stoke fell to 15th on 20 points, with Newcastle and Palace just a single point behind them. The draws the

Monday, January 1st: Stoke City 0-1 Newcastle

YES! Oh hell yes.

The best part? Not only did Newcastle’s win vault them over Stoke, giving them 22 points on the season, but Crystal Palace won at Southampton and putting the south London club at 22 points and West Ham (who has a match in hand with Stoke) took all three points off of West Brom yesterday, putting the Hammers at 21 points. Further, Bournemouth drew at Brighton and giving them 21 points as well.

Which brings us to the current league table:

We’ve now crossed the halfway mark of the league season. As it stands, fucking Stoke fucking City is in the goddamn relegation zone like we’ve all wished and prayed for.

And because of this, there are rumblings that Stoke could part with Mark Hughes by the end of this week, no doubt expecting to get the same sort of new manager bump that Everton, Palace, and West Ham have experienced this season. The only issue Stoke face in this decision of theirs is that there’s literally no one else suitable for the role.

Till death (or relegation) do them part.