City Comfortably Put Away By Pre Season Potters

📷 KBD Photos

It was the battle of the City’s at Turners Cross, where Cork City welcomed Stoke City for a mid-season friendly. This was the second time in two years that these two sides have met, with the Potters running out 2-0 winners in a mid-season friendly back in 2022.

City started with a surprisingly strong side with seven of the team who played against Finn Harps on Friday starting again, the only changes being Noah Sowinski, Arran Healy, Cian Murphy and John O’Donovan coming in for Charlie Lyons, Barry Coffey, Darragh Crowley and Malik Dijksteel, who all started on the home side’s bench. 

It was Cork City who actually started faster early on, likely due to them being mid-season. A long ball from Greg Bolger in the 4th minute over the top of the Stoke defence was poked first time toward goal by Cian Murphy, which caught out Johansson in the stoke goal, who scrambled backwards. Unfortunately for the hosts though, Murphs effort trickled past the post.

It was City's frontman who threatened again three minutes later, when he got his left foot on a low corner by Greg Bolger. Murphy volleyed it toward Johansson, who got down low to smother it.

However, it only took Stoke twenty minutes to find their groove and show their quality. Wouter Burger received a ball from Niall Lewis on the half turn on the left side of the edge of the box. Burger opened up his body and sent a powerful left footed shot across Brad Wade into the bottom right corner to give the visitors the lead.

It only took Stoke two minutes to double their advantage. Bae Junho received a diagonal ball on the left hand side. Junho cut inside and sent a powerful shot goalbound. His shot took a deflection off of Cian Coleman, which wrongfooted Brad Wade and ended up in the top right corner to give Stoke a 2-0 lead.

It seemed City couldn't keep up with Stoke's quality, which showed again three minutes later. A brilliant one touch passing move by Stoke resulted in Niall Ennis playing Andre Vidigal through on goal down the right hand side. Vidigal calmly squared the ball to Bae Junho, who slotted the ball into an empty net to score his second of the game.

For the remainder of the half, Stoke cooled off a bit which allowed The Rebel Army to have creative sparks of their own, but with nothing really coming to fruition. That ended a first half in which City were ok, but visibly struggled with the gap in quality.

Going into the second half, Stoke sent out a completely new eleven. Cork City on the other hand, replaced nine of the eleven players, which included two trialists; Matt Everitt, who slotted into the 10, and a left sided centre back who came in alongside Charlie Lyons. Arran Healy and Conor Drinan were replaced ten minutes into the second half by Harvey Skieters and Matthew Murray.

City managed to keep Stoke fairly quiet in the early stages of the second half, with the hosts looking strong at the back. Stoke’s first big chance of the half came in the 65th minute. Million Manhoef managed to get a tight angled shot away down the right hand side, which was parried by Aidan Dowling. Dowling’s parry found the path of Emre Tezgel , who somehow struck his shot over the bar from twelve yards.

The seventeen year-old Sol Sidibe was able to make up for his teammates mistake ten minutes later. Sidibe's corner was flung in towards the box, which missed everyone and found the back of the City net. A goal Tim Clancy's defence will be particularly disappointed with.

Stoke rounded off the game with a fifth late on, with a pull back from the right hand side from Nathan Lowe finding its way into the path of Daniel Johnson on the edge of the box, who struck it hard and low into the corner to put an exclamation point on the visitor’s performance.

Stoke could've had a sixth with 3 minutes of normal time to play. Eric Bocat cut inside on the right hand side and released a cannon of a left footed shot, which rattled the crossbar. The rebound fell kindly to Million Manhoef, who blazed his effort high over the bar.

That turned out to be the last proper action of the game, as Stoke ran out comfortable winners in the Cross. City will be disappointed at the manner of some of the goals, but overall they weren't terrible, just lacked the sheer quality that Stoke had on show, which was ultimately the difference in this bout. Tim Clancy will be decently impressed with the two trialists, who I thought were two of City's better players on the day.

My Man of the Match was Stoke’s number six, Wouter Burger. Burger opened the scoring in the game and overall he controlled the midfield for the whole first half and was at the heart of Stoke's offensive engine.

City will be hoping to learn from this and take the experience into Saturday's FAI Cup game against Finn Harps. The game kicks off at 5pm in Turners Cross.