Recent goings-on at Stoke City are of increasing concern. It’s our sad duty to report that they are starting to have the distinct whiff of fancy dannery about them.
Not content with having Marko Arnautovic, who to the untrained eye appears to have the same disdain for dietary discipline as he does for tracking back, flouncing about their frontline alternating from bone idle lazy to devastatingly brilliant in the blink of an eye last season, they have now added Ibrahim Afellay and Xherdan Shaqiri to their ranks.
This is most concerning because Stoke has long been the traditional barometer by which all foreign players and indeed anyone suspected of being a bit of a fancy dan are measured. We all know, of course, that being foreign or being a fancy dan equates to essentially the same thing: generally conducting yourself in a slightly effete and unsavoury manner. While being slightly effete and unsavoury may be acceptable in Madrid, Rome and positively encouraged in Paris, it most certainly will not do in Stoke.
For as long as anyone can remember, whenever a somewhat swarthy Spaniard or Italian with ribbons in his hair is tearing apart an English team in a mesmerising display of brilliance, some smartarse or Phil Neville will pose the knowing question: “Ah, but could he do it on a cold, wet night in Stoke?
“Of course he couldn’t he looks like a girl, it’s horrible in Stoke at the best of times, let alone when it’s raining, and they’re proper men in Stoke; they’ll kick seven shades of shandy out of him.”
The point being made is that this foreigner would struggle against lowly Stoke, let alone Manchester United (skirting over the fact that Manchester United are the team that he’s currently tearing apart having just completed his hat-trick against them).
If Mark Hughes, one of the most ferocious cloggers of his day, now insists on this hair-brained scheme of filling his team with nimble-footed, technically brilliant players, it may be asking too much of Ryan Shawcross, Glenn Whelan and Charlie Adams to kick the opposition off the pitch by themselves. Hughes’ reckless ambition is jeopardising one of our countries last great traditions.
As a side note, I did do it on a wet night in Stoke once and it was indeed horrible.
