Phil Parkinson absolutely hit the nail on the head when he gave a rather counter-intuitive explanation for our defeat at Stoke. We’re often asked “Who wants it more?” but last Saturday we simply wanted it too much.

One of the major differences at Championship level is the ability of players to make the correct decision under pressure.

You see it all the time: players in breakaways choosing the best option to tee up a chance, or working out the best way to get the ball into the danger zone from wide areas.

Frankly, that was how Stoke’s winning goal came about. Sorba Thomas has been in spectacular from since arriving in The Potteries this Summer, and a combination of an instinctive feel for where to put a cross and his well-placed confidence in his ability to deliver with quality led to the winner.

Admittedly, there was a good slice of fortune about the goal too: he certainly didn’t intend for the ball to go straight in! However, the percentages were on his side.

If you put the ball into the right areas often enough, you’ll be rewarded. It was a nasty delivery, and on this occasion his luck was in.

The legendary pre-war American golfer Ben Hogan supposedly put it best when an exasperated opponent sarcastically remarked on his luck, wondering aloud how so many of Hogan’s drives went straight into the hole.

“It’s funny”, Hogan is said to have replied, “the more I practise, the luckier I get!”

Thomas did what Hogan did: put the ball in the place where it was most likely to do damage and got the rub of the green.

Up until that point, I felt happy with how we were going about our business, and it was interesting to hear Parkinson felt the same way when he spoke after the match.

We were spending a lot of time in our mid block, absorbing pressure, but weren’t pushed deep into our penalty area too often, and frankly we kept Stoke at arm’s length.

Bearing in mind that they’re up in the promotion places, our defence protected Arthur Okonkwo well. He made three saves, one of which was from a shot which looked like it was going wide, but he couldn’t take the chance of leaving it.

The other two came in added time after the ninety minutes were up, as we pored forwards looking for an equaliser, and took risks. No one in their right mind would judge a team’s performance on chances allowed in those extreme circumstances.

While the game was scoreless, we looked dangerous on the break. It was like Muhammad Ali’s “rope a dope” tactic in the Rumble in the Jungle” against George Foreman. We drew them onto us and hiot them hard on the break.

Ryan Longman missed a golden chance ten minutes before we conceded, and we never lost our shape, while Stoke looked really stretched on the transition.

Once we were behind, that dynamic changed, though. As Parkinson said we were absolutely determined to haul ourselves back into the game, and that ultimately cost us.

That ability to make cool decisions deserted us, and we hurried our approach play, whereas in the first half we were able to build a little more patiently.

By finding extra passes in our build up, we were able to force Stoke back and then draw one of our wide centre backs into our build-up play. Creating little overloads in the pockets in this manner and using those centre backs to recirculate the ball if we went down a dead-end kept the pressure on Mark Robins’ team.

We hurried things once we were behind, probably because we knew we were up against the best defence in the division and breaking them down would be difficult.

It was a shame as we’ve done well in this regard so far this season. Ben Sheaf, in particular, is such a considered passer of the ball and gave a masterclass in the benefits of maintaining a cool head and keeping the ball moving at Norwich.

The Canaries’ back line was very high, and it was tempting to keep dinking straight balls over it to try to release runners over the top, but there’s a reason teams step up like this. Logic dictates that such straight passes are likely to go straight through to the goalkeeper, but we didn’t fall into that trap.

Instead, Sheaf set the tone, playing the extra pass so we could get round the side of the Norwich defence and have a much better chance of playing the killer pass. He hit two magnificent balls to Issa Kabore, who obliged with a couple of fine assists.

Stoke’s defence offered a different kind of challenge, but it was our desperation to claw ourselves back into the match which ultimately did for us.

Patience is a virtue, although it has to be said that, nine times out of ten, an overwhelming desire to win is too. It’s a shame last Saturday was one of the rare occasions where a burning will-to-win is a hindrance!