Radek Vitek is human after all as reality bites Bristol City with options now further limited

Bristol Live’s Bristol City fan columnist offers his verdict on Gerhard Struber’s Robins’ first away defeat of the season to Stoke City

10:00, 03 Nov 2025Updated 10:00, 03 Nov 2025

Bristol City goalkeeper Radek Vitek reacts after Stoke City’s second goal(Image: EFL)

After three wins on the bounce, with five goals scored and just one conceded, I – and I imagine most Bristol City fans – headed up the M5 and M6 on Saturday feeling quietly confident.

The day before, I’d given a lift back home to Bristol to a mate of mine from a hospital appointment he had in Oxford, and we were talking all things football. My mate is an Ipswich Town fan, and whilst we were chatting, I was lauding Radek Vitek for the start he’d made to his City career, and also said how poor I thought striker George Hirst was for his Tractor Boys.

Note to self: you know nothing, and keep your mouth shut! Vitek had a nightmare in the Potteries, and Hirst bagged a brace in Ipswich’s 4-1 win at QPR. Football has a way of humbling you, and as a City fan, just when things look up, reality bites.

OPINION

I’m not going to get too carried away. It was a really bad day at the office for Gerhard Struber and his side. Players who had been performing at a high level had poor games. Too many were just nowhere near the levels needed to stop a rampant Stoke City side from taking all three points. In the end, it was a canter for Mark Robins’ team, and we were soundly beaten.

The starting line-up is pretty much picking itself at this moment, with only Mark Sykes and Ross McCrorie rotating. The interesting call was whether Struber would start rejuvenated frontman, Sinclair Armstrong, over fit again Emil Riis. As it was, Struber gave Sincs the nod.

It was the home side who were out of the blocks the quickest, and within a few minutes they had taken the lead. The impressive Junior Tchamadeu rolled away from Neto Borges all too easily, before racing away and sending over a wicked cross that Manchester City loanee Divin Mubama fired high into the net.

It was a sign of things to come. Borges was given a torrid afternoon by Tchamadeu, and Mubama gave the sort of display that will have given Rob Dickie and Rob Atkinson nightmares on Saturday night.

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One swallow does not make a summer, and despite the circumstances of Stoke City’s second goal, I’m not changing my opinion on Radek Vitek. The on-loan Manchester United goalkeeper has saved numerous points for us already this season, and I don’t think he could even explain how the ball escaped his grasp from a slightly overhit Million Manhoef pass. City defenders Rob Atkinson and George Tanner were turning seemingly safe in the knowledge that Manhoef’s pass had been snuffed out, not realising that Radek had gifted Mubama with the simplest of tap-ins to score his and Stoke City’s second.

Credit to Mubama, he was alive to the opportunity and wheeled away celebrating, leaving Vitek with his head in his hands and then beating the ground in frustration. Fans in the away corner of the bet365 were staring at each other in utter disbelief. Vitek is, in fact, human after all.

We were just coming to terms with the second when Manhoef scored the third, and it was again poor defending down our left-hand side, as it was just too easy for Manhoef to make his way to the centre of the goal before firing past Vitek. The likes of Borges, Zak Vyner, Atkinson, and Dickie just looked leggy, and Manhoef skipped past them all.

Weirdly, despite being three down, I didn’t feel the game was over. Perhaps I was influenced by having seen us come back from two down last season at the bet365, to go on and get a point, which in truth should have been three. I felt we could mount a similar great escape. Sadly, Steve McQueen’s bike was well and truly entangled in barbed wire, and despite a tactical change of shape and personnel at the break by Struber, withdrawing the unlucky Tanner for Riss, Tchamadeu put the game to bed with his side’s fourth quickly after the restart.

Once again, we shot ourselves in the foot, allowing Tchamadeu to run at us and break into the box before finding the corner of the net. Borges was again caught out, and Vyner perhaps had a fifth booking and a suspension on his mind, as he opted not to challenge the Stoke right back. I know that Dickie is not blessed with pace, but he seemed to be treading in treacle.

Worryingly, after the goal, Atkinson was forced to leave the field with what Struber later confirmed was a hamstring injury. A further goal followed with Dickie playing a ball out to Vyner, which he failed to control, and Mubama smashed the ball home for his hat-trick.

We did get a consolation goal from the head of Sykes, glancing a looping header from a Yu Hirakawa corner, and perhaps it was deserved for the side’s attitude of not giving up. I think most of the fans that had remained until the final whistle could see that we were trying; it was just that we were way off it, and Stoke City were just far too good for us on the day.

Within the Championship, you cannot have any more than a couple of players off it. For me, yesterday, aside from Tanner, Sykes, Adam Randell (in the second half), and Armstrong, the rest were nowhere near it.

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We have an immediate opportunity to bounce back on Tuesday night at home to Blackburn Rovers, but with Atkinson almost certainly ruled out, Struber’s options are limited. I would perhaps start with Haydon Roberts as left centre-back, and I would also consider Elijah Morrison ahead of Borges. I think Riis may start in place of the unlucky Armstrong, with the thinking that Sincs can have a greater impact coming on later in the game. It will be interesting to see what Gerhard goes with.

Our 3 Peaps in A Podcast player ratings were Radek Vitek: 4.0, Rob Atkinson 4.0, Rob Dickie 4.0, George Tanner 5.0, Neto Borges 4.0, Mark Sykes 6.0 *MotM, Adam Randell 5.0, Zak Vyner 4.0, Anis Mehmeti 5.0, Scott Twine 4.0 and Sinclair Armstrong 6.0.

For the substitutes, who must play a minimum of 20 minutes (including injury time) for a rating, we went: Haydon Roberts 5.5, Ross McCrorie 5.5, Yu Hirakawa 6.0, and Emil Riis 5.0. A game average player rating of 4.87, resulting in a season-to-date average of 6.35.

For head coach Gerhard Struber, it was 4.5. He tried to change things, but nothing worked. We gave the game a rating of 4.5. That’s two drubbings in three seasons at the bet365.

Radek Vitek is human after all as reality bites Bristol City with options now further limited

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