Stoke City hot-shot's hat-trick quip will make new manager lick his lips
Stoke City is more than a side struggling in the wrong half of the Championship at the moment.
There is £30 million investment in infrastructure, including a new state of the art training facility; the fan base gave a reminder of how loud they can be in the second half against Sunderland – and that was when the stadium was still not full – and potential changes to Financial Fair Play rules could make recruitment exciting at some point not all that far down the road.
There is possibly the best goalkeeper in the Championship in Viktor Johansson and, up the other end, Tom Cannon has just reached double figures for the season.
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There is also a group of homegrown young players hammering on the door who could and should burst through to fight for places in the first team.
Keeper Tommy Simkin and midfielder Sol Sidibe have both captained England at youth level this season, defender Jaden Dixon is in the England junior fold too and Freddie Anderson has been captaining the under-21s at the age of 17. Left-back Laurence Giani, aged 16, made the senior bench in October before heading off to play for Italy’s under-17s.
Then there are two strikers who have been prolific as they have worked their way through the academy; Nathan Lowe and Emre Tezgel. Tezgel’s form on loan at MK Dons in the second half of last season persuaded Stoke to keep him close at hand this term while Lowe went out to play regularly for Walsall.
Now Lowe has hit it off, tagged as one of the hottest prospects in the EFL, and an excellent brace against Newport County took his tally to the season to 16 goals, with six assists on top. Forwards like this - a towering athlete, hard worker, hungry finisher with either foot or head - are hard to find.
He’s the main man as Walsall bulldoze towards the League Two title and, as League One managers try to tempt him and Stoke that he can spend the second half of the campaign up a level, the bottom line is getting him back for pre-season in a place where he can really compete to be playing regularly for his parent club.
He’s happy but he’s not content and this brilliant line about hat-tricks shows the kind of attitude and belief in his own ability that has made Walsall fans fall in love.
“I could’ve scored more and as a striker you want to score as many goals as possible,” he said in a post-match interview for Walsall’s website on Sunday. “This brace was only my third brace of the season and I haven’t had a hat-trick, which is unlike me. It’s different, stepping up from the under-21s to the first team but normally when I score one or two I can go on to score a third and a fourth. I’m still waiting for that and hopefully later in the season it will come.
“I’m just happy to help the team out and keep scoring in different games. If you keep the tally up without scoring many braces it means that you’re probably scoring or assisting or both in every game you’re playing, which is great for the team. I’d like to think I’ve done my part for the team alongside everyone else. That’s why we are where we are.”
The second goal was particularly well taken, a touch to get inside the box before whacking it early into the top corner.
“As a striker, sometimes the earlier you hit it the better,” he said. “If you can remember the Carlisle game, I got one in the first minute-and-a-half just from shooting early before the keeper was set. This time I hit one in the corner. I back myself left foot, right foot. I don’t think really, all those years of practice it’s just about shooting inside a split-second. There’s not really a science behind it.
“I was buzzing when it went in, struck it clean, didn’t shin roll it! It was a nice strike and no one can take that one away from me. The first one went down as my goal and I think it should have done but it was borderline.”
Now Lowe is with Walsall preparing for a New Year’s Day trip to second-placed Notts County. They are 12 points clear behind a congested chasing pack at the half-way stage of the season and at this rate they could get near 100 points.
Lowe said: “I think it’s great because we don’t necessarily have that much pressure on us right now. We obviously can’t get complacent or rest on our laurels but we have that sort of buffer. We’re not going to win every game this season and it’d be unreasonable to suggest that but if we can keep this going, wins spiral. I haven’t gone into a single game this season thinking we were going to lose and I’m sure everyone else thinks the same. Even at 0-0, everyone knows we’re going to get chances and often that is falling to me and hopefully I am able to oblige – not always, that’s the life of a striker, but I try my best.”
