This was not a good day at the office for Saints, but the performance although not great, we not as bad as the result, poor defending and organisation cost us dearly for the third game in a row in the Championship.
This Verdict is going to sound very similar to the last two League games, poor leadership and poor organisation in defence cost us dearly, with once again an opposition player being left completely unmarked for what turned out to be the winning goal.
Stoke on the other hand were well drilled and well organised and that is why they ground out a result and sit top of the League after the opening 3 games.
Will Still obviously realises that he has a problem in his defence, after all we have not played the same back three in each of the games, after the problems against Wrexham he replaced Ronnie Edwards with Taylor Harwood-Bellis, after the Ipswich game he replaced Joshua Quarshie with Nathan Wood and not only that he shuffled the pack and put Wood in the centre of the three and moved Jack Stephens to the left of the trio.
But sorry to say the same old problems reared their ugly heads.
For the first 54 minutes Saints looked in command, they were controlling the game and although they hadn't scored, we were looking more likely to the best chances of the game had seen Jay Robinson hit the same post twice in the space of 10 seconds in the first half and a Taylor Harwood- Bellis header producing a world class save from the Stoke keeper and after bringing on Damion Downs at the break you hoped perhaps the goals would now come.
But it was Stoke who opened the scoring, it started with a free kick to Saints on the left side, we had plenty of time, but inexplicably we took it quickly and short, giving Stoke time to press, we did not look comfortable and they won the ball back and with our defence all over the place, fired home after Gavin Bazunu had done well to keep the first effort out, we had 5 players marking fresh air.
It looked like it would get worse 10 minutes later Stoke broke with 5 players against our 3, we were again all over the place at the back and a perfect through ball to Mubama seemed to have won them a penalty as he flew through the air with the greatest of ease, however Bazunu had not touched him and luckily for us the referee saw that and booked the Stoke man and it being his second yellow card he went off.
So with Stoke down to 10, surely we could win this one, Flynn Downes should have scored, making a great run but getting his angles all wrong with his header.
Then came the second goal of the game and this again showed how poorly organised we are at the back, Johansson in the Stoke goal caught a cross and spotted that Thomas was all on his own on the half way line, and found him with a long throw, this is totally unacceptable, a professional football team in the second tier of English football all charging forward like a team of 9 year olds. the only man back was Jack Stephens and he was nowhere near Thomas, who ran on and fired home.
Disgraceful, yes the Captain has to shoulder part of the blame here, he was last man back and could see the play in front of him, he should have been pulling someone back to cover, he didn't, but he also had 9 other men on the pitch and they should have been aware about what is going on around them and how we had left ourselves exposed.
Total lack of leadership, if we don't bring in someone in the back line who can control situations then we are going to see this week in week out, as we have done in the opening 3 games.
A few minutes later and we had hope, Taylor Harwood-Bellis shook off his marker and headed home, but although we had our chances, the poor miss from Ross Stewart not counting because the offside flag was up, we never really looked like getting back into it.
So Will Still has a lot of problems to deal with, the main one being the issues at the back which have cost us all 4 goals conceded in this campaign so far, that is a nailed on fact and an unacceptable one, all 4 goals coming from unacceptable defending.
Still has changed personnel in each game as I have mentioned, how is he going to change it for the trip to Watford next week ? perhaps be could bring in Ben Mee, who after leaving Brentford is a free agent, if we had done that 3 years ago, perhaps our history might be a little different.
I have been pointing this out for a long time now, but you cannot have a back four or three or whatever without an organiser and a leader, the problem is obvious, perhaps the answer isn't as no one at the club has shown that they are that man.
But that is only one problem, at the other end our issue is creating and converting chances, we had 18 attempts at goal, but only 2 on target, Stoke had 12 with 4 on target, although 2 of those were in the 2nd goal debacle.
We need to start finishing our chances, at the moment we are snatching at them, but hopefully this will improve.
As I said at the start the performance was not as bad as the result, for most of the game we were in command and could easily have been 2-0 up before Stoke scored, however we weren't and once again found ourselves playing catch up, this time we didn't have a get out of jail card.
So how did we lose this one, we all know the answer to that question, we now look to see if Will Still deals with the situation, he clearly isn't happy with his back 3, as I said he has changed it each week to try and rectify the problem, he has to bring a fresh face in, a leader, an organiser and yes I am getting as sick as writing this week in week out, year in year out as you are reading it.
You will have read this next sentence many time as well, "Do the same things and get the same results" that is self explanatory, I don not want to be writing the same Verdict week in week out.
Having said all this, we need to evolve not panic, we have a good squad in Championship terms, the sale of Tyler Dibling will give us money, we need to spend it and spend it well.
There is a long way to go in this season, the transfer uncertainties are not helping us, but we are hanging on in there, when things improve we can move up the League.
Will Still is an unknown quantity, we will soon find out if our trust in him is well founded.