Michael O’Neill bemoans ‘bad draw’ as Stoke suffer play-off setback

Stoke manager Michael O’Neill called his side’s 2-2 result at home to Birmingham a “bad draw” as the Potters lost ground on the play-offs.

Despite an early warning sign after in-form Birmingham striker Lyle Taylor struck the post inside two minutes, the Potters found themselves trailing when 17-year-old Jordan James notched his first senior goal.

The visitors’ lead proved short-lived however with Tyrese Campbell mis-controlling a Taylor Harwood-Bellis long ball and inadvertently wrong-footing Neil Etheridge in the Blues’ net, with the scores level again inside the half-hour mark.

Stoke rose into the ascendancy and, although they nearly took the lead through Josh Tymon’s wonder-strike off the woodwork, their persistence paid off after the interval when Campbell added his second of the afternoon.

The clash took another swing prior to the hour mark with Harwood-Bellis’ miscued clearance falling at the feet of Gary Gardner, who happily obliged to level the scoring.

Stoke boss O’Neill said: “We played against a packed defence and it was hard to break that down. There were a few opportunities where we could have done better.

“At Forest, we talked about two periods in the game where we got disjointed, and we suffered as a result, and today was another example. The game got stretched when we were ahead and we left ourselves vulnerable, which is something we have to get away from.

“We’re doing everything to try and win the game. The crowd was good today and they want to see a team that’s trying to win every game. We are not winning enough but our intentions are certainly there.

“There are good draws and bad draws in this league, today was a bad draw for us. We need to turn games like this into three points. We haven’t made that