Jack McGlynn scored for the third consecutive match as Stoke City came from behind to win 2-1 at Portsmouth on Saturday, a fifth straight away victory that took the Potters top of the Championship going into the international break.
The Press Association match report records a game Stoke barely entered before half time, then turned in the space of 18 second half minutes.
An American Connection Turns the Match
Portsmouth led from the sixth minute, Tyrese Shade curling in his first goal for the club, and Stoke’s only attempt of a flat first half was an off-target Ben Wilmot header.
The match had been paused as early as the second minute, when Stoke wing-back Junior Tchamadeu reported a comment made to him from the stands and referee Ben Speedie stopped play.
The equaliser, on 59 minutes, was made and finished by Americans. Nicolas Schmid allowed Ben Johnson’s low cross to squirm away from him, substitute Luca Bombino kept the ball in play at the byline and squared it, and McGlynn thumped in Stoke’s first shot on target of the afternoon.
Bombino had been on the pitch for two minutes. On 77 minutes, Ethan Galbraith’s shot was pushed back into the middle of the area by Schmid and Wilmot nodded in his third goal of the season to complete the comeback.
The defeat ended Portsmouth’s six-match unbeaten run.
A Record That Dates Back to 1947
Speaking after the match, Mark Robins put the away run in its historical frame (PA via Sky Sports): “That is the first time we have won five on the bounce away from home since 1947. That just shows what an achievement it is.”
Robins added: “We can go into the international break satisfied and it gives us a lot to be proud of going forward.”
His half time message was simpler. “We weren’t us in the first half,” he said. “At half time I told us to be more us.”
The Run McGlynn Is On
The goal was McGlynn’s fifth of the season, following strikes against Preston North End and Blackburn Rovers in his previous two matches.
The 23-year-old, a summer signing from Houston Dynamo, now has seven goal involvements in his nine league starts.
SBI Soccer describes this as the best form of his career so far. On the evidence of the last three matches, it is hard to argue.
What It Means for the USA
McGlynn is producing this run from outside the national team picture. He was left out of the United States squad for this month’s Nations League quarterfinals against Haiti, while Bombino, the man who made his equaliser, now heads off with the U.S. Under-23s.
An American created the goal and an American scored it, in a win that took Stoke top of the Championship. Only one of the two is travelling for international duty.
Midfield places under Mauricio Pochettino are contested, and November’s squad is settled. What a player in McGlynn’s position can control is exactly what he is doing: scoring in three straight matches for the form team in his division.
Stoke resume at home to Birmingham City on November 21. If the goals keep coming at the top of the Championship, his case for the winter window makes itself.
