Ricardo Fuller’s fine first Premier League goal of the season sixteen minutes from the end of an abysmally poor match was enough to earn his Stoke side all three points against rock bottom Portsmouth at a blustery Britannia Stadium this evening. As Spurs thrashed Wigan 9-1, the Sky Sports pundits, who descended on the Potteries, must have been ruing their producers’ decision to broadcast the Stoke game live, rather than the match at White Hart Lane, and, like the 27,069 fans inside the ground found themselves sitting through a largely classless encounter between an uninspired Potters side and an impotent Pompey. The early moments belied the tedium to come however, as the visitors squandered a glorious chance to take the lead just five minutes in, Thomas Sorensen saving a Kevin-Prince Boateng penalty to keep the scoresheet blank. That’s how it looked like ending, but Fuller had other ideas, curling home superbly after the best move of the match, his strike an island of quality in an ocean of dross.

In the absence of suspended skipper Abdoulaye Faye, Stoke manager Tony Pulis brought the excellent Andy Wilkinson into his side at right back, allowing Robert Huth to move into a more central role alongside Ryan Shawcross, who, at just 22, was given the honour of leading his side out for the game. Danny Collins completed the defence that successfully protected Sorensen’s goal, while Senegalese midfielder Salif Diao, who spent time on loan at Portsmouth four seasons ago, returned to the fold after recovering from the groin problem that kept him out of the last two matches. Dean Whitehead partnered him in the centre of midfield, while Rory Delap and the in-form Matthew Etherington retained their places on the wings, providing the service, or often lack of service, for Pulis’s preferred attacking pairing of Fuller and James Beattie. After Liam Lawrence and Glenn Whelan played in Ireland’s controversial World Cup qualifying play-off defeat in France in midweek, Pulis unpopular chose to leave them both on the bench. They were accompanied by Turkish striker Tuncay, whose last substitute appearance, at Hull two weeks ago, lasted just six minutes, with Pulis deciding to withdraw him tactically after Faye’s dismissal, a move that sparked wide debate and much disapproval.

Portsmouth boss Paul Hart was without his first choice goalkeeper David James after he suffered an injury in the warm-up, meaning reserve Jamie Ashdown kept goal, despite managing fewer than 40 league games in five years at Fratton Park, and being sent off on his last visit to the Britannia Stadium while on loan at Norwich in October 2006 in a game the Canaries went on to lose 5-0. Ivorian striker Aruna Dindane, who was heavily linked with a move to Stoke in the summer but instead moved from French club RC Lens to Pompey, led the away side’s line, while Frederic Piquionne, who netted twice as Portsmouth beat Stoke 4-0 in a League Cup match last month, was named amongst Hart’s substitutes.

With strong winds and driving rain inside the stadium, it was proving difficult for the defences to deal with high balls forward in the opening minutes. Dindane used this fact to his advantage, controlling well inside the Stoke box, and heading towards goal. He was abruptly halted by a clumsy, chest-high challenge by Delap, and, although referee Kevin Friend initially allowed play to continue, Delap and Stoke can have few qualms about the decision to award the spot-kick, ultimately made by Friend’s linesman, who was well positioned to see the infringement.

As, understandably for a game played on an awkward time on a Sunday, 160 miles from home, and shown on television, Pompey’s bell-ringing travelling contingent was comprised of only its 500 hardiest souls, the decision was made to extend the area of the South Stand occupied with home fans, allowing Stoke fans, the most in the ground since its opening in 1997, to sit in the area usually reserved for visiting supporters directly behind the goal. Perhaps this bothered Boateng psychologically as he lined up his penalty, with the Stokies taking advantage of their strategic position by furiously trying to put him off. His effort was certainly a weak one, he struck the ball with little conviction low and marginally to Sorensen’s left, and the Dane, having dived the right way, was comfortably able to gather.

Stoke, lucky to be level, may have been expected to kick on, but in a dire first half this was not seen. Fuller flashed a left-footed snapshot over Ashdown’s bar, and Beattie’s tame free-kick drew a regulation save from him, but Pulis’s side’s attacking threat ended there. Portsmouth’s was little better, with Nigerian forward Kanu thundering a strike wide, while Hayden Mullins’s mis-hit shot drifted away from Sorensen’s goal. Some halves of football fly by. This was not one of them. After what seemed like hours of unskilled drudgery, Friend finally brought it to an end. A chorus of boos rung out from the more expectant, more impatient Stoke fans, with the majority expecting, and impatient for far better after the break.

Though the game was still far from a pulsating classic, the Stoke players did begin the second half with a modicum of the urgency and commitment of which their game had been so painfully devoid before the break, forcing an early corner, which, dangerously whipped in by Etherington, Huth could only glance over the bar. Fuller was then unable to poke a trademark Delap long throw home, and Pulis decided it was time for a chance, pleasing the fans with the introduction of a little calmness and quality in the form of Lawrence for the flagging Diao, and of the popular Malian target-man Mamady Sidibe in place of the ineffective Beattie.

Linking well with Wilkinson whose defensive work was as stout as his bursts forward were menacing, Lawrence’s presence seemed to take instant effect on his teammates, who for the first time of the afternoon found the ability to string passes together. The next big chance fell the way of the visitors though, with Dindane finding himself clear on the edge of the Stoke box with the ball bouncing over his shoulder. With the goal in his sights he lashed a left-footed volley fiercely into the Boothen End, a welcome reprieve for the Potters.

With time running down, Pulis appeared ready to make a final play for the three points, with Tuncay emerging from the dugout to the brought on for Fuller, who had to that point been far from his best. Perhaps sensing that his number was almost up, the striker produced the moment of the match, latching on to the ball on the edge of the area after a swift passing interchange between Etherington and Whitehead and teasing a low curling effort past the dive of Ashdown and into the right hand side of his goal, to spark wild celebration from those Stoke fans still awake.

The goal clearly rocked Portsmouth, and a minute after the restart it could have been two, as Lawrence picked out Sidibe inside the visitors’ area. Exactly a year to the day since his last goal at the Britannia Stadium, a headed late winner against West Brom, Sidibe, who has just returned from seven months out injured, treated the home faithful to a nostalgic display of terrible finishing, dragging his strike well wide.

In predictable fashion, Portsmouth pushed forwards and Stoke sat back, but it was in fact the Potters who came closest to adding to the scoreline, Wilkinson almost netting his first goal for the club in spectacular fashion. Winning the ball with a crunching tackle deep inside his own half, he forged forward powerfully, displaying his fine pace to elude the attentions of four Pompey defenders before engineering himself space for a tight-angled shot eighteen yards out. He struck the ball well, and for a second it seemed bound for the top corner, but ultimately sailed fractionally wide, the whole stadium, minus the small pocket of away fans rising to show their appreciation of their local hero’s efforts. Moments later, Wilkinson was rightly named man of the match, and Pulis, who after the game claimed that his one regret was that Wilkinson’s attempted “goal of the season” didn’t come off, will be hard pressed to leave the tenacious defender out of his side for the trip to Blackburn next week.

As the ninety minutes ticked into three added on for stoppages, Sorensen saved well from a Boateng free-kick, but, as Sidibe used his bulk well to shield the ball in the corner and run down the clock, Portsmouth never looked like finding an equaliser. Friend brought the game to an end, the Stoke players and fans ultimately happy to have won. The performance was poor, and Pulis’s team selection once again will be questioned, but ultimately the result, which lifts his side to ninth, just a point behind Liverpool, was right, and that’s really all that matters.

Stoke Side:

From The Horse’s Mouth:

Stoke manager Tony Pulis:
“I thought the first half was as poor as we have played and Thomas (Sorensen) has changed the game with his penalty save. We were a little bit better in the second half and it was a great three points for us. It was a quality goal, a quality move and a quality finish.”

Portsmouth manager Paul Hart:
On the injury picked up by goalkeeper David James: ”The World Cup is in June next year, a calf muscle is usually about three weeks. I think David will be fit for the World Cup.”

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