All around Nice Guy and Personality of the Year, Mark Hughes, took the chance to have a little dig at Arsenal after our draw with Stoke on Sunday.

The manager reckons that the Potters were the better team in the first half and even when we came into the game in the second, we didn’t create anything.

“I enjoyed it,” he said.

“I thought it was a good performance from ourselves. We were very much in the game and in the first half we were certainly the better team.

“In the second half, Arsenal came into it a little bit more and were playing around our box without really creating anything of note apart from a number of saves that Jack [Butland] made but we tested Petr Cech the other end as well so I thought it was an evenly matched game.”

The most irritating thing about Hughes’ comments is that he’s right. Stoke were the better team in the first half and even after we began to claw back some possession later on, we were wasteful and managed to fluff even the most straight forward of chances.

Ultimately we looked like a team who a) played an intense, high-tempo match away just days earlier, which we did, and b) were missing one of their key, creative players, which we also were.

Although some issues are refusing to go away, I’m hoping the team just need a rest and Mesut Ozil returns for Chelsea.