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Search forMatch report: Stoke City 0, Derby County 1 (PICTURES + VIDEO)
Wednesday, December 03, 2008, 07:20
Carling Cup quarter-final
Stoke City 0, Derby County 1
AS blessings in disguise go, this one was dressed in a wig, false beard, fake glasses and a pair of comedy breasts.
Except no-one from this end of the A50 will have been laughing too much today as they woke up and struggled to locate that proverbial blessing of now being able to concentrate exclusively on the greater goal of Premier League survival.
Not after seeing the very real prospect of Wembley wrenched so late and so controversially from their grasp at a time when the optimists will already have ordered their flares and tank tops by way of celebrating a repeat of 1972 and all that.
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Only referee Rob Styles, in the whole wide world of football, possesses the ability to so effortlessly leapfrog Tony Mowbray, Phil Brown and Arsene Wenger in the disaffections of Stoke supporters everywhere.
A man reviled by City fans ever since his controversial intervention into a play-off semi-final more than eight years ago, he once again auditioned successfully for the role of pantomime villain with undue haste during last night's Carling Cup quarter-final.
Not content with infuriating the home contingent by disallowing a seemingly legitimate first-half strike by Richard Cresswell, he excelled himself with a script only his pen could write by awarding a dreadfully harsh penalty for handball against Andy Griffin in the dying seconds of injury-time.
TV replays suggest it was no more a deliberate handball than Styles is a competent referee.
That said, Mr Magoo, a character with only marginally worse eyesight than Mr Styles, could have been refereeing last night and it still wouldn't have mattered had Stoke accepted just a fraction of the chances to fall their way.
Ricardo Fuller missed more in one night than he will miss all month after his otherwise terrific efforts were accompanied by a mystifying ability to miss the target by a distance even greater than the gap between Rob Styles and refereeing perfection.
All of which left last night's tie prey to the kind of controversial climax neither side deserved after both gamely tried to break the deadlock by more orthodox means during an infinitely better second half than first.
No-one wanted extra-time, let alone penalties, but even Derby might feel a tinge of guilt at winning in such fortuitous and late circumstances. Then again...
Stoke – showing five changes from Saturday but still stronger than many might have anticipated – opened up their visitors as early as the second minute when Seyi Olofinjana freed Mama Sidibe for a run and cross that was to only just confound Rory Delap's attempts to score against his old club at the far post.
Fuller, starting his first Carling Cup tie of the season, was twice off target with early efforts, while his burst on to Ibrahima Sonko's ball over the top ended with unanswered appeals for a penalty when his attempted cross was charged down.
Fuller's pace was stretching Derby down their right shortly afterwards, but his unselfish pull back to Olofinjana was greeted with a catching practice effort straight at Roy Carroll.
Stoke's first real discomfort was self-inflicted on the quarter-hour when Danny Higginbotham topped a clearance to inadvertently tee up Przemyslaw Kazmierczak for a fierce drive into the Boothen End from distance, while Miles Addison's more accurate effort from similar territory was seen all the way by Steve Simonsen.
The home side's ascendancy would have been translated into more clear-cut chances had they conjured up a little more quality in promising areas during the opening 25 minutes, while half-a-dozen corners and throws were yet to have the desired effect in front of Derby's lively following.
And Glenn Whelan's wayward drive from some 25 yards just before the half-hour, following more useful foraging by Fuller, hardly filled the home crowd with hope of an impending breakthrough.
The initiative remained largely with City as the visitors fended off successive corners amid howls for a penalty as Leon Cort appeared to be manhandled on the second of these.
The home crowd were celebrating an apparent goal for an uncannily long time in the 36th minute before realising the referee had penalised Cresswell for handling as he bustled his way through en route to stroking past Carroll.
The referee endeared himself further to the home fans by ignoring Darren Powell's bear hug on Sidibe near the halfway line – and then appearing to indicate that it would take more than two hands round the neck before he would whistle.
Derby's most threatening work remained from distance in the first half as Kazmeirczak latched quickly on to a loose ball to let fly with genuine venom to clear Simonsen's goal by a yard or two.
Stoke came perilously close to an opener in stoppage time when Paul Connolly slipped from a corner to gift Olofinjana a shooting chance, but the defender recovered in the nick of time to somehow deflect the subsequent shot over his bar to ensure a first-half blank.
Stoke suffered a rude wake-up call soon after the restart when Ellington broke down the left and centred for former Stokie Kris Commons to head against the bar from little more than six yards shy of the goal.
Fuller's shooting remained strangely off beam at the other end, meanwhile, as he careered one so wide it almost knocked Higginbotham flat to the ground after the City defender had initially supplied the Jamaican by heading Whelan's free-kick into his path.
Fuller cocked his shooting foot again a couple of minutes later after streaking on to Sidibe's carefully-weighted through-ball in a near re-run of his penalty-winning burst three days previous.
But this time he dallied a split second too long to allow Jordan Stewart to slide in with a possible goal-saving tackle.
Fuller's radar remained sadly awry as he mis-timed a header wide after Sidibe had found him in rare space when heading down Delap's deep cross from beyond the far post.
There was certainly greater urgency since the break as both sides appeared to share the crowd's distaste for the prospect of extra-time in temperatures so low they might even turn Hull managers a whiter shade of pale.
The Rams stressed the point in the 64th minute when breaking clear with sufficient numbers and intent to leave Commons drilling a cross-shot that struck Cort and looped wide before it could cause any lasting damage.
The tie was developing into something of a toe-to-toe contest as Commons, jeered at every turn by his old fans, half-spun from near the edge of the area and won a corner from a deflected drive.
The growing possibility of an upset was further enliving the visiting support massed behind Simonsen's goal, though there were audible gasps of relief from their ranks when a marginal offside flag rendered Fuller's free run on Carroll frustratingly academic at the other end.
Sidibe came the closest yet to nosing Stoke in front when prodding wide on 74 after reacting instinctively to Fuller's deflected ball from the right channel.
Derby's response was so very nearly fatal for the home side after Addison was first to a near-post corner to skew a curious effort across goal and against the base of the far post.
Play switched again as Carroll then produced the save of the night so far when parrying Cresswell's header and then watching helplessly as Fuller's rushed follow-up predictably missed its target.
Fuller's outfield work remained remarkably intrusive however and, with another burst of speed, threatened to bisect the home defence before being illegally squeezed out on the edge of the box.
Whelan's subsequent free-kick was curled exquisitely over the wall and towards the top right-hand corner, only for Carroll to guarantee extra-time by taking off to his left and fingertipping superbly over his bar.
Or so we thought. But disaster struck in the third and final minute of injury time when Kazmierczak's cross from the right struck Griffin's upper arm as he jumped with his back to his opponent, leaving you-know-who pointing unapologetically to the spot by way of a crushing sentence on Stoke's former Derby defender.
With the clock ticking round to the 94th minute, Ellington sauntered towards the dead ball before casually rolling it slightly to his left as Simonsen, so often a penalty saviour in Stoke's goal, guessed wrong by falling the other way.
Youth-team manager Adrian Pennock approached the referee for an explanation of his decision when the final whistle blew a few seconds later, while an even warmer reception committee was doubtless awaiting him up the tunnel.
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