Not much change really after four months off.Missed Miazga.Zonal marking why ?
IMHO

Rafael 7 Little to do really.The really great goalies dominate the box.
Gunter 6 Usual service.Very much a mixed bag.Still backs off too much.One terrible cross when totally under no pressure.
Richards 6 Nothing much going forward,struggled a bit at times.Very much normal service.
Moore 9 Near enough 10 MOM.Obviously kept his levels up during lock down.
Morrison 6 Struggled against Vokes.Normal service again.
Swift 7 Tired.Not surprising really.Unlucky with the free kick.
Ejaria 4 Very disappointing.Right off his game.
Olise 7 Very promising,will get better and better.
Obita 7 Back to his old position.Some good crosses.Didnt put a foot wrong.
Meite 6 Usual really.Bull in a china shop.Tired badly.
Jao 8 Great goal.We will miss him.

Puskas Thought he looked reasonably sharp.
Rino Looked a bit rusty.
Macca Yeah looked sharp.
Adam Gave away the crucial corner.Looked his age.

Ref.Forgot how bad they are.Missed a clear penalty,then missed the foul when Swift was about to shoot.Mc Clean and Powell consistently fouled,but did little about it.
Crowd poor.Very disappointing attendance.

Meite is toilet. Just doesn’t have a footballing brain. Any talks of playoffs is stupid, even if we managed to get in we’d be destroyed by any half decent side.

Poor to not see that game out. Negative tactics going 4-5-1 against a team lower than us at home. Stoke had 4 CB’s out there and expected us to take the game to them. Which we did for a while with João driving at them. Puscas lacked service when on, I think he needs a 4-4-2 with out and out wingers when he’s on the pitch.

Understand that Bowen may have opted for experience to see the game out In the 84th and brought on McLeary and Adam - the changes unsettled us further though. Would have just liked to see Masika to exploit their slow wing backs.

Disappointing but sod it. Reading FC are back!

What like Fulham?

The same Fulham side we beat, Forest side we drew with twice or Preston side we doubled?

Thats probably one of the best performances from Moore I've seen. Thought we looked very good in spells and then had spells where we let Stoke play too much. Olise looks very promising - tried too much on a lot of occasions today but is a real talent. Swift, Rafael, Obita good.

Didn't think anyone was poor really. Just switched off at the end, very frustrating. Hope Joao isn't too injured.

Cabral - 6 didn't have a lot to do to get a higher score tbf
Gunter - 7 occasional Gunter moments but generally decent
Richards - 6 fine, bit wobbly in defence not much in attack
Moore - 8 top draw for the most part
Morro - 7 solid, good fall over foul at least once.
Swift - 7 so close, in and out the game
Ejaria - 6 decent, some lovely inter play at times but only patchy and didn't deliver
Olise - 8 just a joy to watch. Sometimes flashy, sometimes simple. Still a bit naive and weak at times, but some of our best moments came through him. Always looking to produce
Meite - 7 always a threat and unsettled teams. He's not pretty but he's effective
Obita - 6 didn't have the legs at the end, couldn't quite get a couple of crosses in, but decent
Joao - 7 looked dangerous and was linking with Meite fairly well. Real shame about the injury, would score higher if he played longer

Puscas - 7 still seems on his heels too often, but much better passing and touch
McCleary - 7 almost a great through ball, some nice moments
Rinomhota - 6 solid, but couldn't quite make a couple of breaks happen
Adam - 6 a couple of moments of good experience but also gave away the corner and a couple too many ambitious forward balls


Ref - 5 few major decisions wrong, but not great.

Overall disappointing, but always felt vulnerable at just 1 and could almost feel it coming at that corner. Pretty good display on the whole. Joao a big loss though.

Didn't watch it but I'll just say +1 to what Ian Royal says as he is normally right on the team board (not so much AE )

Tbh I’d go pretty much with all he says in that post.

Watched until the 75th Minute. We looked good. Didn’t see either of the goals.

I hope Joao isn’t injured, hopefully it was cramp. Looked really sad when he came off.

If we could see out games, then we’d be in with a higher position. If we play some slick footie against Derby, we could win.

Agree with comments that we need wingers when puscas is on.

Dont think he would have had an ice pack for cramp, and his reaction after he went off tells us all we need to know, certainly his hammy again.

I still can't believe we didn't win that. Should have really been 2 or 3 up before the end, that's how much we were on top in the game. Maybe without Joao's injury we would have done.

Thought we were solid and Stoke hardly troubled us at all until the end when we went to sleep and got sucker punched. Very frustrating when we should have won that game today. It does reinforce the reality though. Our squad lacks quality in a few areas and we'd have no chance in the playoffs anyway. We need to try and address those weaknesses in the summer with whatever limited transfer kitty that we do get. We really do lack quality up front to finish teams off, like when we got held by Hull. We may have to sell someone valuable, just hope it's not Olise as he played very well today.

Very frustrating but not a massively surprising result when you don't take your chances like Swift's freekick, that's 5 draws in our last 6 league matches with Stoke now!

I completely forgot the game was on.

Ah well. Annoying only in as much as if we had held on we would only be 6pts off play-offs but hey ho. We're going to finish about 12th anyway - which is about right.

We have some of the most skilful players in this division but they don’t create anywhere near enough chances given their talent. We overplay. The sucker punch at the end would have been avoided by a promotion chasing side. We have to be more organised than that.

Rafael 6 Had nothing to do all afternoon
Gunter 6 A real mix of good and bad
Moore 7 Played really well but loses a mark for not organising the defence for that corner
Morrison 6 Was fine until Vokes came on and then wobbled
Richards 6 Got a let off in the first half. Struggled to push forward
Obita 6 I thought he was ok but he did tire towards the end
Swift 6 Slow start but improved. Great freekick
Ejaria 5 Disappointing and really faded after the break
Olise 7 MoTM Did really well, Involved in the goal, lovely cross, good effort on goal etc
Meite 6 Good assist but should have passed to Obita in the second half
Joao 7 Took his goal really well and looked a threat

Puscas 6 One very poor pass but worked hard. Had no service
Rinomhota 5 Quiet
Adam 5 Conceded a really soft corner
GMac 6 Looked lively.

Dont think he would have had an ice pack for cramp, and his reaction after he went off tells us all we need to know, certainly his hammy again.

According to Bowen he didn't experience a real pull and the associated pain, just a tightness, so sensibly taken off. Fingers crossed it's largely psychosomatic.

Obviously it was disappointing to not take the three points but from 75 minutes I think you could see the players tiring and starting to sit deeper and, more worryingly, refuse to try and keep possession.

Positives
Moore was strong at the back
Joao was a threat and had the Stoke defence panicking when he ran at them - shame he had to go off
Swifts free kick was so close
Obita put some really good crosses in during the first half
Olise shows immense promise and I think he could be a real asset next season

Negatives
I think the substitutions played to Stokes advantage
Swift sometimes didn't see the easy ball and tried too hard to "make something happen"
Ejaria delayed his pass too many times and needs to mix it up a bit and not try to dribble past the defender "one more time"

Overall I thought it was a decent performance but the mindset has to change when we're a goal up with 15 to play. We must learn how to shut games out.

Think we actually did the reverse of what a lot of people thought as the game came to a close and tried to go too direct to create the second goal rather than hold onto possession and build something, taking the sting out of Stoke, as you commented.

We just weren't very good at it.

The same Fulham side we beat, Forest side we drew with twice or Preston side we doubled?

Easy bite but I know who I’d back if I was a neutral.

The same Fulham side we beat, Forest side we drew with twice or Preston side we doubled?

Easy bite but I know who I’d back if I was a neutral.

Us if we made the play offs because we'd be on a hell of a good form run combined with a good record against them.

We won't make it though, because we aren't good enough yet.

With no home crowd. There's no longer a home advantage.

Let's get to a secure position. Then start to focus on the future.

3 home wins in 19 league games since the restart.

Totally agree with Zip’s first 2 sentences about having some of the division most gifted players but that we overplay.

The problem is we don’t have intelligent players, who know when to twist and when to stick. There are times to play but there are times to move the ball on quicker and 2-3 times yesterday we lost good positions due to poor decision making, alas a trait this has been far too prevalent throughout the season.

Sort this out and we will become a team to be reckoned with.

We are truly blessed to have Olise. I know we have a past of bigging up our home grown talent a little too much but wow. What a player. Looks so mature. Bowen must be so excited at the prospect of playing him more next season.

Thought Moore was near imperious. Morrison very good too.

I may be wrong as I was watching it in the sunshine so missed a few of the finer derails but did it seem like Puscas has gotten better at his hold up/keeping the ball in our possession when he gets the longer balls played up to him?

Yeah puscas hold up was massively improved

Delighted Bowen is playing Olise. Fair play to him for that and he is putting in the performances to warrant it

The midfield 5 - obita, swift, Ejaria, Olise and Meite - all young and with the exception possibly of Obita, all likely to get better with experience

Could be exciting times if we can keep them together with Rino in the mix as well

It’s going to depend on who we get to keep from the current squad. I would like to see us sign Miazga and Pele but can’t see any chance of that happening. We will almost certainly offload Gunter, GMac, Adam, Mannone and loan out Aluko again as he didn’t even make the squad yesterday. That will free up some wages but will leave us light at right back especially if Yiadom is ever out injured. Not such a problem at centre back as I think Tom McIntyre can step up. I would give Osho a new deal as I think he is a justified fourth choice centre back.

So if we can keep hold of the rest and bring in a couple of loanees (right back and winger) we will have cut the wage bill significantly without spending too much(Ejaria for £3 million). However we may have to lose one of our stronger players because of FFP so possibly Swift, Puscas or Rinomhota may have to go.

We don’t need another massive overhaul this summer. Lose 8 or 9. Bring in 4 and that brings the size of the squad down to about 25 which seems about right to me.
However we need to get the best out of this squad. When I look at teams like Preston, Bristol City and Blackburn I don’t see sides that are anything special. We have enough talent to be moving ahead of them but Bowen has not found a playing style that suits us at home. He needs to be more positive. Away from home is a different matter. We seem able to soak up pressure, counter and score.

Agree with that, a fair few teams making a play off challenge who are good but nor amazing, we should be in the position with our squad.

I’d like to see a few more of the youth lads brought through obviously. Southwood and Holsgrove probably the closest

I would have Southwood as our number two next season and take Walker’s wages off the books. Don’t know enough about Holsgrove to comment.

Yep

The good thing about this season coming to a close in midtable is that we can afford to give the likes of Olise, Richards, McIntyre, Osho, Andresson, maybe East, Frost and Nevers etc minutes to get under their belt.

I think it's safe to say few people would have called Richards, Rino or Olise as the next three to break through before they did. Hell, even after he did in Richards case! So you never know who might surprise you and just fit in well. Rino for example, isn't the most talented player by any stretch of the imagination, he's good sure, but his strength lies in the decisions he makes and his commitment more than his technical skill.

Jordan Holsgrove's loan has been terminated. Expect to see him get minutes before the end of this season.