Stoke City key men ruled out for the remainder of the season with scary injuries but However…
Reaction as Stoke City secure important 2-1 win over Preston North End
Stoke City will have to get through the rest of March without Wouter Burger.
Burger picked up his 10th yellow card of the season in yesterday’s 2-1 win at Preston North End, which was actually the cut off for punishment for reaching 10 bookings.
The 23-year-old now faces a two-match suspension, ruling him out of next weekend’s home game against Norwich, which is followed by an international break. Stoke will then return to action without Burger again at Hull City on Good Friday, March 29. Burger will be back for an Easter Monday home game against Huddersfield.
Ben Pearson, who missed the Preston win through a suspension of his own after a mid-week red card at Leeds, and Jordan Thompson, who was back in the squad at Deepdale after a two-game ban for yellow cards, will come into contention to take Burger’s slot in central midfield.
Stoke moved up to 19th in the Championship with those three points but the bottom half is still incredibly close. The Potters are only three points above second-bottom Sheffield Wednesday and three points behind 14th-placed Bristol City with nine games remaining.
Steven Schumacher said: “It’s going to be nip and tuck with loads of ups and downs for everybody. The team that can stay consistent and put a couple of back to back results together will get away from it. We’re hoping that’s going to be us. If we can show the same desire I’m sure we’ll be all right.”
I am surprised we did not game the system and instruct Burger to boot the ball away once we knew how many injury time minutes there were. The number of silly bookings he/we have received when refs are not consistent warranted some revenge. Maybe he had an injury to protect from becoming worse. Let’s hope Thompson takes his spot otherwise Pearson will just do his is own version of collecting 2 yellows.
