Stoke City were awarded their first penalty since spring last year to earn a 3-2 draw with Ipswich Town
Ipswich pair Cedric Kipre and Jens Cajuste get their hands on Lamine Cisse to concede a late penalty for Stoke City.(Image: Martin Rickett/PA Wire)
Kieran McKenna thought it was soft, pundits thought Ipswich had lost control and Mark Robins couldn’t give a hoot.
This was Stoke City’s first penalty in just over 11 months, awarded in the fifth minute of injury time when they were trailing 3-2 to McKenna’s Ipswich Town.
Jens Cajuste put his arm around Lamine Cisse’s belly while Cedric Kipre put a hand on his shoulder as Cisse was trying to bring down a pass from Ben Gibson. It was more like clumsy defending from two players in poor positions than dangerous play but ref Tom Kirk saw a foul, similar to one he had just given against Stoke for Million Manhoef clumsily touching Kipre in the Ipswich box.
Milan Smit picked up the ball and passed his spot kick past Christian Walton and into the net for his second goal for Stoke and second of the game to secure a point.
Curtis Davies, watching on for Sky Sports, said: “I think the referee, maybe in context, thinks Kipre has panicked and pulled him back. I think that’s what he’s thinking. My biggest thing is that (Darnell) Furlong had a big chance to clear just before. He tries to karate kick it out of the sky. I think from the referee’s angle, he sees Cajuste coming from one way, Kipre coming from the other way and I don’t think he could tell you which one he’s given it against. He sees two players on him and he goes down so it’s a penalty. But we have the joys of replays and I think it’s really soft.”
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Fellow pundit Luke Chambers didn’t think it was a stone wall decision but wasn’t willing to let Ipswich’s defenders off the hook.
He said: “I don’t think it is given as a foul on the half-way line in the 90th minute. It’s a different context.
“But from the moment that Ipswich went 3-2 up it felt like from the reactions from the bench and players on pitch it felt like a bit of panic, ‘Oh my god, we’ve got ourselves back into it.’ It felt like a bit of a lack of control and substitutions were made. Kipre is on the half-way line on the floor and then he’s sprinting back into his gap at centre-half, Furlong slashing at a clearance. They have to have that composure and maybe leadership that was lacking and caused them to throw away three points.”
McKenna was annoyed that Ipswich had been denied a similar claim at the end of their draw with Leicester on Saturday.
He said: “We’re really frustrated with our role in the last minute and the fact that we didn’t show the composure we needed. But we’re also really frustrated with the decision. For me, it’s a really soft penalty.
“It’s beyond irony with the level of contact Cedric’s put on his shoulder there compared to what happened to him in the 96th minute on Saturday.”
Robins wasn’t going to lose sleep about the decision being contested.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I really don’t care. We have had loads of nailed on penalties this year and that’s the first we’ve been given so I do not care.”
Stoke had not been awarded a penalty since Lewis Baker scored at Preston on April 5 last season after Liam Lindsay was accused of pulling back Ali Al-Hamadi. That was their eighth awarded in the 2024/25 season, scoring seven. They were awarded five in 2023/24, four in 2022/23, five in 2021/22 and two in 2020/21.
Ipswich have been awarded six penalties this season while five clubs (Leicester, Watford, Wrexham, Hull and Derby) have been awarded four. There are five others who have only had one (Bristol City, Sheffield Wednesday, Swansea, Norwich and Preston) and two who are yet to get one at all (Oxford and West Brom).
Penalty awards have gone down considerably this season, with just 55 so far. That is about one given on average every eight Championship matches compared to about one in six last term, one every 5.6 in the two before that and one every 5.3 in 2021/22.
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