Stoke descend ever deeper into the mid-table

An era ended at the Britannia last Saturday. Stoke’s loss to Arsenal means, for the first time under Mark Hughes, the club will not finish ninth. That would be good news if they were going to finish higher than ninth, but, alas, the bottom half of the table must be occupied by someone.

If the Potters lose their last match of the season, away to Southampton, they will have their lowest points total since getting promoted to the Premier League ahead of the 2008-09 season, and they will finish somewhere between 12th and 16th, the true dark heart of the mid-table, where there is neither hope for a better future nor longing for a better past. There is only mediocrity, and it is blinding.

That’s bad, in some ways. But also, is it really that bad? Alternatively, would anyone who cares feel better if they’d finished ninth again? What is the point of all this? Seriously. In how many conceivable Premier League futures do Stoke become interesting? Is it, among infinite possibilities, less than, like, five? That feels about right.

The extra special weird thing about all this water-treading is that Stoke have an above average number of interesting and/or good players. Xherdan Shaqiri and Marko Arnautovic are two of the best attackers in the Premier League outside the top six. Joe Allen is good and versatile and could allow them to play in any number of effective systems they choose not to employ. Jon Walters, Peter Crouch, Mame Diouf and Saido Berahino should add up to a functional striker. Bruno Martins Indi will be an excellent signing if they can make his loan deal permanent. Ryan Shawcross is solid. Jack Butland has only recently returned from a long-term injury, but remains one of the most promising young keepers in the country.

There’s things happening at Stoke. Things that when you squint make it seem like they’re a solid top-half side. But when you don’t squint, and instead simply look at the cold hard truth of thing, you start to feel sort of uneasy about the whole situation. Because, on top of being good, Stoke are awful.

Stoke currently, and for most of the past month really, and also for the past eight years, have had nothing to play for. Against Arsenal on Saturday, they did almost nothing for an entire hour. There was a brief, almost furious flurry of activity following Crouch’s introduction off the bench (he even scored — with a blatant handball, admittedly — but, you know, they all count) and then as soon as Arsenal reclaimed their two-goal lead, they stopped again, like a child losing interest in a toy as soon as she gets to play with it.

I’ve never really objected to these late-season, phone-it-in performances, however much these guys are getting paid. It’s hard to go all-out for no reason. Fair enough. Whatever. But the thing about Stoke, perhaps at this point the defining feature of the entire club, is that they play like this always. The sum of their quality and their disinterestedness is a truly profound mediocrity.

When’s the last time you even thought about Stoke while not watching a game Stoke were playing against a team that actually interests you? If we were to play word association, and I said “apple,” you’d say, for example, “orange.” And I’d say “blue” and you’d say something like “green.” So I’d say “cat” and you’d probably say “dog.” Then I’d say “Stoke” and you’d be, like, “Stoke.” And I’d say “what?” and you’d say “Stoke” again, because what on earth is there to associate with a team that’s finished no higher ninth and no lower than 14th going on nine seasons in a row, and never been in a relegation scrap?

I suppose the first place to look when confronted with a problem like this is the manager, who is Mark Hughes. But as nondescript a job as he seems to be doing (seriously, if I were to ask you how Stoke play, what would you say? Even professional pundits mostly rely on a few holdover clichés from the Tony Pulis era, with added references to attacking flair), I’m not sure he’s exactly the problem.

Firing Hughes would hold some symbolic weight, and might galvanize the squad short-term, but then that’s exactly what firing Pulis did, and look where Stoke are now: almost literally exactly where Pulis left them (13th on 42 points, to be exact; they’re currently 14th on 41 points with a match to play). But given they’ve got good-ish players, and a surprising amount of money and a manager that’s neither the problem nor the solution, what do they do? What could possibly make a difference?

If a manager is to change Stoke’s fortunes for the better, one gets the sense he will have to be a truly off-the-wall hire. Someone like Marcelo Bielsa, who may not last more than a couple seasons but would at the very least make Stoke interesting, and possibly supply the blue-print for a promising future.

But in a horrible, twilight-zone kind of way, there’s no incentive for the club to take that kind of risk (change is always a risk, perhaps especially so for the mediocre). It’s often said of relegation-threatened clubs, usually in reference to Pulis or Sam Allardyce, that they’d kill to have an uneventful, 10th-place season. And that’s true. But how many uneventful, 10th-place seasons can a club endure before stability gives way to ambition?

(Speaking of which, is there a player in Europe with a higher skill-to-ambition ratio than Arnautovic? There are sometimes moments in the middle of matches when can you almost physically see him make the decision to exert effort.)

None of this (seriously) is intended as criticism. I am just sort of amazed the club as a whole hasn’t gotten bored with itself. Mediocrity is abided only so long. Something always changes. Players leave, managers come in, owners get bored, something. Anything. But there appears to be no end in sight to Stoke’s cycle of blah-ness.

I don’t know whether to celebrate this or to make fun of it. On one hand, these players are supposed to be ambition robots, programmed to demand excellence of themselves at all times. On the other, what would you do if you were good enough to finish mid-table every season without breaking a sweat?

Newcastle, West Ham, Bolton, Crystal Palace, even Blackburn. All these clubs have succumbed to their own restlessness. They have suffered for their ambition, their unwillingness to fully accept the state of things, which is that only six teams in the league have a realistic shot of winning it (Leicester were 5000-1 outsiders for a reason; you’ll have to wait another lifetime to see that again) and the only way to bridge the gap is to get bought by a billionaire.

And so who can really blame Stoke for what is, at worse, a sort of perverse discipline? They have accepted their role. They are an extra making the money of a movie star (they were the 27th in Deloitte’s annual money league last season, fell out this year and will likely make a comeback next year now the league’s new TV deal has kicked in). They are the team the Premier League, as it slides ever further into the guck of its own corporate nonsensery, deserves. They are the greatest mid-table side in history.

The Thierry Henry/Robert Pires Award for Non-conventional Penalty Misses: Riyad Mahrez

Manchester City were their typical, strange selves against Leicester on Saturday, alternately sublime and ridiculous. They rushed out to a two-goal lead before conceding a good-but-avoidable Shinji Okazaki volley on the stroke of halftime. The City implosion was almost complete in the second half, when Bobby Madley (incorrectly) awarded the Foxes a penalty before (correctly) ruling it out because Riyad Mahrez touched the ball twice, accidentally kicking it from one foot onto the other, in the act of shooting.

The Wayne Routledge Award for Misses: Andre Ayew

A miss among misses, truly. Liverpool’s bumbling, nervous wreck of a top four bid took its talents to the site of the death of Tottenham’s title bid on Sunday, and took what should have been a nerve-settling lead in the 35th minute. But the Reds are nothing if not committed to making their fans suffer as much as mathematically possible, and so it was they left Andre Ayew wide open two yards out from goal at the back post on a corner, and could only watch as he missed not once, not twice, not … okay, it was only twice. But it was really, really bad. The Champions League is within touching distance for Jurgen Klopp’s side after what was, in the end, a very comfortable win, but my goodness do this team like to push their luck.

The Sergio Ramos Award for Emotional Roller Coasters: John Terry

John Terry has always had a talent for making himself the center of attention, and so it was only fitting that he had his moment in the sun during a title-winning season in which his primary role was bringing Antonio Conte to the realization he didn’t have the personnel to play with a back four. Terry returned to the Chelsea lineup for their dead rubber against Watford on Monday — their second to last match at Stamford Bridge before Terry leaves in the summer — scored a sub-fairytale goal in the 22nd minute, celebrated far too much given the circumstances, ran back down the pitch, botched a defensive header and gifted Etienne Capoue an equalizer. There’s a reason this season’s his last. Captain. Leader. Idiot.

The Roberto Di Matteo Award for Unlikely Heroes: Michy Batshuayi

Michy Batshuayi, much like his fearless captain, has spent almost all of this Premier League season on the bench, which is a lot more disappointing for a 23-year-old than it is for a 36-year-old. But he, too, earned his moment in the sun, and this moment in the sun was a meaningful moment in an important sun, and not the self-serving moment John Terry enjoyed in the light of his own reflected ego. With the match scoreless against West Brom, as the Blues looked like they might have to wait a whole three days to clinch the league title against Watford, Batshuayi was brought off the bench, presumably because there were literally no other attacking options available. But he scored the goal that won Chelsea the title, and now Conte can officially do no wrong.

The Ian Holloway Award for That Was A Lot Closer Than Anyone Expected: Hull

The Premier League is an unpredictable beast, but if there was one thing everyone could agree on at the start of the season, it was the fact Hull, their then-interim and now-former manager Mike Phelan and all 12 of their fit adult players were getting relegated as soon as the authorities would allow it. After a shockingly good first month of the season, the Tigers looked set to prove everyone right. And then Marco Silva showed up. Hull had 13 points from 20 games when Silva took charge and were bottom of the table. They won 21 points from their next 17 matches, and fell just short of safety after losing to Crystal Palace on Sunday. It’s too bad. Some clubs deserve to get relegated. Hull did not. One can only hope their moronic chairman and owner has learned something.