Boubakary Soumaré

They rebuilt that midfield really, really well.

obviously invested big money in Galbraith, Deveny, McGlynn, Soumare.

And to Mark Ramsey's credit, it's all come together quite well and quite quickly.

So I think he deserves a lot of credit for that.

Um, and I think, I think that's gonna be our midfield duo, if you will, for, God, probably the next two seasons if we can keep, uh, hold both of them, uh, 'cause it will be hard.

But, but yeah, Soumaré had a good game today for me.

Um, yes, a- again, you c- you can nitpick it, a few little mistakes here and there, but, but overall the performance was, was, was really good.

Um, and I, I will say one more player that I thought had a, had a good game today, to be honest, where a lot of people will probably say, "Oh, no, I don't agree with you." Couldn't care.

His game is to run at people.

I think he's a very technical footballer, quite similar probably to, to Ethan Galbraith.

But the thing is, obviously Ethan Galbraith and Soumaré have got those two positions, haven't they, nailed down.

And so he's that good a footballer that the manager wants to get him in there because he's that good, he can influence the game regardless of where he plays.

Like, throughout the 90 minutes I just think Boro were better, and I don't think we'll find that in many games.

Stoke have been, without suffocating teams on the whole, Stoke have just been able to have the control of games that we've not been used to in recent seasons, and that is through players like Galbraith, Soumaré, um, even like Johnson, McGlynn, right? Players that are just much more technical than we've been used to and are much more effective with the ball.

Um, and the team is showing such spirit that I think that that is enough to carry them through 50% of championship games just, just on that basis.

As long as they can continue to show that togetherness and team spirit and hard work and, you know.

Um, so I will avoid Boucat.

One that I will say was probably more surprising, I think Liam may have put this in, uh, one in there as well, was Soumaré.

I think Soumaré's been quite a surprise, to be honest with you.

Because when he, when he first joined, a lot of, a lot of the talk online, I know you're not supposed to look into it too much, but a lot of it was, "Oh, Stoke have signed him for three, three, four million quid.

What, what the hell are they doing? What's going on there?" You know, and a lot of this has come from Sheffield United fans saying, saying Soumaré, while he was playing for them, you know, wasn't the best.

And every now and again he was, he was okay, but he was...

It was his consistency that was the issue.

The flu- the football is fluent.

So I think you'll see Lowell now come back into that central centre-half role, but I don't think there'll be too many changes.

Possibly Soumare, because he did look like he went off with a knock in this game.

But yeah, I am absolutely not surprised at all, mate.

While we're in this good run of form, surely we've got to keep with this XI, right?