Stoke Manager Michael O’Neill has no blame for former Super Eagles Captain John Obi Mikel as Stoke lost 2-1 to visiting Millwall on Monday night.
The Nigeria international as usual performed his midfield duty to the best of his ability but it did not stop the team from losing a tie O’Neill insists should have been won.
Stoke will likely have to settle for a place in the second tier next season after their own three-match unbeaten streak was ended by Gary Rowett’s team, with Michael O’Neill’s side now 11 points off the top six.
Despite enjoying most of the possession and the chances in the first half, Stoke found themselves behind to Wallace’s first goal of the season.
The defender had already gone close with a header that he glanced wide and set-pieces looked to be Millwall’s most likely route to goal.
A corner fell to Jake Cooper, after being wedged between a group of players, in the box and his hanging cross found George Evans.
Evans cushioned his header into the path of the 27-year-old to scramble home past Adam Davies, but the lead was not to last.
Stoke would have felt aggrieved to be behind after Bartosz Bialkowski had been forced into saves from Brown and Nick Powell.
A disappointed O’Neill did not however fail to situate the blame where it should be.
“I’m very disappointed with the result, very disappointed with the second-half performance really. We showed two sides of our character today, first half we were excellent, really good play, but we conceded a poor goal after three clean sheets and conceded another poor goal in the second half.
“It was a defensive error that cost us, I didn’t think we’d lose the game to be honest, but the second half our tempo dropped, our energy dropped and ultimately these are the situations we’ve faced a lot of the season, where we’ve not been able to play at the same level for long enough.”
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Despite winning Millwal Manager Gary Rowett insisted that Mikel was a torn in the flesh.
“We played Jed Wallace around John Obi Mikel thinking that he could run off him and get into good positions, but Mikel’s experience dragged Jed away into areas he didn’t want to be” he lamented
