THE WAY I SEE IT

WHAT I really like about Stoke City this season is that they have managed to find a level of consistency in their performance.

- By Mike Pejic

They might have lost against Coventry and Leicester but they still played to a decent level and they could keep their chins up and stay optimistic. It's not nice to lose a game when you think you should have got something out of it, of course, but you can be confident that things will change for the better and you'll get your reward if you maintain your standards.

But you also need to back it up. You can stay positive through one defeat or two with good reason but at some point, the sooner the better, you have to prove it. There are a couple of times when I've been chuffed Stoke have done that.

A loss to West Brom but they won the next game against Birmingham. Decent in draws at Norwich and Middlesbrough, not quite there at Blackburn, but they won the next game against Wrexham. Defeat at Millwall, dug out a win at Portsmouth. Loss at Leicester, thrash Charlton.

That's a positive sign. This league is up and down, backward and forwards and all kinds of crazy and it's only the teams at the top who manage that kind of consistency and it's no coincidence that they are also the teams who have coherent plans and balanced squads.