Kenwyne Jones was delighted to be back in action after marking his return to the Stoke team with a goal in Thursday's 3-0 victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv at the Britannia Stadium.
Jones, making his first appearance since picking up a hamstring injury a month ago, opened the scoring in the 12th minute of the Europa League Group E contest, rising unmarked to crash home Dean Whitehead's corner. While that was a bonus, what pleased Jones most was that he was able to go on to complete the full match.
"I'm happy to be back out there for my first game," the Trinidad and Tobago striker told The Sentinel. "I'm happy to get the goal, but playing the 90 minutes is the most important thing."
He added: "It was important to get used to playing a full game again after what was a serious injury. It was a grade two tear and it was the first-ever hamstring injury I've had. I'm fine at the moment and I am happy for that."
Stoke blew their Israeli opponents away in the first half, with Cameron Jerome making it 2-0 in the 24th minute by nodding in Matthew Etherington's free-kick. Jerome then took the ball around onrushing Maccabi goalkeeper Guy Haimov just after the half-hour mark and squared to Ryan Shotton, who converted neatly.
The opening period ended on a sour note for the Potters, though, when Jerome - who had earlier been booked for dissent - picked up his second yellow card and was given his marching orders having been adjudged to have elbowed Yoav Ziv.
The Stoke supporters also made their unhappiness clear, booing Ziv every time he touched the ball having felt his reaction to Jerome's contact had been overly dramatic. So it was to the great delight of the home crowd when Ziv was dismissed himself in comical fashion 10 minutes after the restart.
Frustrated that no free-kick had been awarded when he was tackled by Shotton by the touchline, Ziv kicked out and managed to send his boot - which had come loose in the challenge - flying into the assistant referee. His immediate apologies were to no avail and he received a straight red card.
After the match, Ziv stressed the whole thing had been an accident - and insisted he had not been play-acting when Jerome was sent off.
"In the first case he punched my neck - everyone can see it, I was not cheating," Ziv told www.stokecityfc.com . "Maybe afterwards the crowd and their players were driving me crazy a little bit, and I kicked my shoe. It was unlucky that it hit the linesman - just an accident. It is only the second red card in my whole career."
Source: PA
