Ray of hope as unfancied Potters pack a punch

I’M NOT quite sure why Stoke felt the need to wheel out a rather bemused looking Sugar Ray Leonard prior to kick-off last Saturday.

He gamely put on the shirt presented to him — Stanley Matthews’ No. 7 — and waved to the crowd, but I think the whole occasion was rather lost on him. Gawd only knows what he made of 25,000 shaven-headed northerners singing Tom Jones songs intermittently.

But let’s get to the football (that’s ‘soccer’ to you Sugar Ray). The Potters did rather well and made us work hard for our result — even without the services of the human windmill. They were also unlucky not to get a penalty; perhaps if Ricardo Fuller was wearing a red shirt, a lorry load of hair-gel and an arrogant smirk the referee would have pointed to the spot!

I repeat my affirmation of last week — that Stoke have earned their place in the Premier League, and nothing I saw on Saturday changed my mind. They gave us a game – certainly a better game than Portsmouth gave us midweek; they matched us for hard work and effort and although the superiority of our team told in the end, I don’t think many will be getting an easy ride down at the Britannia this season.

If the likes of Tottenham and Newcastle were hoping teams such as of Stoke and Hull would act as some sort of safety net between them and relegation, it looks like they were sadly mistaken. I’m not laughing . . . honest.

Interesting that, just as many are commenting that Ashley Cole is finally recapturing his “Arsenal form”, so Arsenal fans are beginning to question Gallas’s form for the Gunners. Perhaps Ashley is finally feeling the Chelsea effect, just as Gallas is letting the last vestiges of it slip away.

Perhaps he is getting stressed over his age — after all it must be difficult being 31 in amongst the “brilliant”, “amazing”, “unrivalled” embryos Wenger keeps ‘unearthing’.

Gallas, as much as he has been a phenomenal player, is not a captain – and the strain and responsibility is showing in his game.

Ashley on the other hand is finally beginning to relax and rediscover his mo-jo. Effective and accurate in defence, quick and dangerous on the attack — he and Bosingwa are causing our opposition constant problems on both the wings — something we have not done consistently since the days of Robben and Duff.

By the time you read this I will have unpacked my garlic and silver bullets and hopefully be perusing Dracula tat in some Transylvanian tourist trap, while the boys are making the most of the 41p a pint beer.

Monocle magazine identified Cluj-Napoca as one of the top five places worldwide that are due their turn in the international spotlight in 2008. As the town that gave the world The Cheeky Girls I would say they had their chance and blew it big time.

The area has also spawned a number of techno (techno techno!) acts as well as “Sistem” who came third in the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest — so we can safely say music is not what is going to put them on the map — but no doubt the local brew, Ursus, will encourage the Chelsea faithful to throw a few shapes at half-time.

We would be unwise not to take this lot seriously, as they have already taught Roma they do not intend to be the group’s whipping boys. I wonder how many virgins had to be sacrificed for that result?

But enough of the clichés — back home and the games start coming thick and fast as we face a possibly tricky match against a Villa side who have quietly been racking up an enviable set of results under an unusually quiet Martin O’Neill.

On paper their squad does not look particularly outstanding but they’re obviously doing something right and our ‘makeshift’ defence will need to be on top of their game to keep their strikers quiet, especially if we want to extend our already extraordinary home record. Unbeaten in the league at home for four and a half years — a record now spanning four managers.

So we’re top, Spurs are bottom, our support has renewed vigour, Scolari is living up to his reputation and all is well with the world.

Our new manager seems to have reinvented Beletti and Ferriera into players of dependable versatility as well as giving us another dimension and many more options. Under Phil, Malouda is flourishing and we are finally beginning to see the player matching the reputation. All we need now is for our strikers to start scoring regularly and it could be a season to remember.