Another season is over, Stoke City have finished ninth again and once more they have signed off with a final-day victory. But while yesterday's 2-1 success over West Ham sent fans home happy, Pete Smith looks at the talking points.
STOKE were flat and the Britannia Stadium was grumbling when Ryan Shawcross took it upon himself to make an intervention on 54 minutes.
The centre-back burst dow the right wing with a show of rare skill, but also drive and ambition.
It worked. Stoke rallied, the crowd was lifted and it was a bonus that from the throw-in Shawcross won, Imbula played a one-two with Joselu before firing in an equaliser.
The Potters have legitimate excuses for a bad couple of months, but the time had come to start making their own luck.
They did it again when Glenn Whelan and Shay Given made four goal-line clearances between them within a minute.
It made for a spirited second half that released the tension around the stands and helped end the season on a high.
MAME DIOUF FULL OF CHARACTER
NEVER mind that Stoke have finally scored from a corner – it only took 313 attempts since their last one, against Manchester United on New Year's Day 2015.
This goal was all about Mame Diouf, a bulldozing finish that released a tide of emotion as he revealed a message to his mother who was killed at the Hajj in Mecca last September.
Back in the autumn, the Senegal striker was on a run of nine goals in 19 league games spreading over two seasons and was the focal point of Mark Hughes's plans.
His time since has been epitomised by strong character, filling in at full-back against Chelsea and Bournemouth, but this was an emphatic way to end the season doing what he does best. Boy did it mean a lot!
THE GIANNELLI IMBULA ENIGMA
A HAPPY band of travelling Stokies saw Giannelli Imbula thunder about the pitch dictating Porto's pre-season friendly against Stoke in Cologne last summer.
But no-one could be quite sure what kind of player they were getting when he joined the club for £18.3m in January.
Is he a defensive midfielder, a box-to-boxer or something out of left field? Four months on and we're not really all that much the wiser.
At his best, he is like a bigger boy toying with everyone else in the playground, breaking through the lines, albeit in a very different way than Steven Nzonzi ever did. He has a crackerjack low shot on him too, as seen again yesterday.
But Shawcross had to give him a blasting in the first half when he was caught day-dreaming up field. Next season will be the real test of whether he can sustain a serious impact over 90 minutes every week.
IS POTTERS' SPINE IN TRANSITION?
THIS was the 27th different starting line-up that Mark Hughes has named during the 2015/16 season, with five changes from the loss at Crystal Palace last time out.
The spine of the team which finished so strongly last year – Asmir Begovic, Shawcross, Nzonzi and Diouf – have all been missing for either all or large parts of this campaign, with perhaps only Jack Butland consistently shining as a replacement.
It was always going to be a hard balancing act dealing with selection on merit and horses for courses in a large squad, but the injury situation – for a second season – has made it all the more difficult for a manager who preaches the importance of consistency in selection.
Hughes might think he needs to make a couple of clever deals in the summer to re-establish that backbone.
But he must also expect more from the key men already in his squad, including Diouf, Bojan – who has had an unexpected spell in the cold in the second half of this season – and big money recruits Imbula and Xherdan Shaqiri.
A SEASON OF CONTRASTS
STOKE book-ended their season with miserable runs. Six winless games to start the season and again at the finish before the happy ending against West Ham.
Yet in between things were not all that bad. In fact, for the majority of the season – from September 26 to March 19 – Stoke had the fourth best record in the top flight. Only Leicester, Tottenham and Arsenal were better.
They picked up 43 points from 25 games, only two fewer than Arsene Wenger's side and five points more than the best of the rest.
It has meant that despite a pretty hard two months, they are good value for a third ninth place finish in succession; three straight finishes in the top 10 for the first time since the 1930s; breaking the 50-point barrier for a third time too.
That much-needed pick-me-up win yesterday means supporters, players and coaches can enjoy it.
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