Under-pressure Stoke City boss Nathan Jones admits his side have a soft underbelly and once Nottingham Forest equalised, the game was akin to inserting a drawing pin into a bouncy castle.
Looking for their first win of the campaign, Stoke flew out of the blocks against Forest, taking a tenth minute lead through Lee Gregory’s powerful volley, and the hosts could have been in front earlier had Michael Dawson not cleared off the line in the opening two minutes.
That first half-an-hour was the best Stoke had played this season according some observers, but their world came caving in when Joe Lolley took advantage of a Jack Butland error to crash into the net nine minutes before the break.
It went from bad to worse for Jones, under mounting scrutiny, as Sabri Lamouchi’s Reds roared into a 3-1 lead with goals from Sammy Ameobi and Lewis Grabban.
Despite James McClean’s 84th minute consolation, it was yet another defeat for Jones, who remains focused on the job of getting Stoke out of the Championship’s relegation zone with some calls for his departure.
“That’s what’s happened to us pretty much every game. I can’t remember a game when we were totally dominated, Leeds maybe in the second half,” he said.
“Errors have cost us. Big, big errors.
“It’s very difficult to take, really, really difficult to take.
“I work through the week, I trust it, I die by it. It will stand me in good stead for the rest of my life. I know the work we do and I would love to play under me. It’s a wonderful way of training, of playing, of values.
“But when you put out a side and they play as well as they did and then individual errors - not just one, it’s three.
“They were three poor, poor goals to give away.
“Even the second goal which was a good header. Still, if you don’t make errors you win the game.
“We came out really strong but we’ve got to score four to get a win.
“We’ve got a soft underbelly at the minute and that’s frustrating because we don’t train like that. How can they forget all the stuff we do in training because we train with a competitive edge about us?
“We set up brilliantly, controlled and pressed them brilliantly. Then out of nothing we concede. It changes everything.
“It’s like putting a pin in a bouncy castle.”
