We’ve endured the anguish of some pretty lame performances and defeats this season. This surrender to Stoke City, a club so devoid of interest or personality, smacks as the worst of them all.

Worse than the awful collapse from the first whistle against Burnley. Worse than the diabolical chucking away of a commanding lead against Barnsley. Even worse than that clueless malfunction and late succumbing to Sunderland.

Those made me angry. The defeat to Stoke made me upset. And I don’t want to get upset by football, by City, by grown men kicking a piece of leather. But this is what it’s like when you care.

Did the City players care? With an exception or two, it didn’t look like it.

Did the manager care? He would say so. But his team selections certainly suggested he cared more about accommodating the opposition than building on our decent work of the previous three matches.

Granted, the loss of Jon Parkin and Danny Mills through injury – the latter permanently, unless we can pop back for him when his move to Blackburn is scuppered – was a cruel twist after the tunnel of hope had just started to show a flicker at its end. The departure of Mills, complete with stress fracture, back to his unwilling employers in Manchester, we knew, was a massive setback. His experience, his lip, his ability as a footballer and organiser, all gone. And clearly nobody was in a position to take on that mantle, whatever they had learned in the short period of time they’d spent in the ex-England man’s company. But losing his presence is absolutely no excuse at all for the garbage served up against Stoke.

Parkin’s crumpled ankle should surely have prompted a return to two orthodox strikers. None of our remaining frontmen were of the target type who could prove effective in Mr Parkinson’s preferred 4-5-1.

But we remained in pessimistic mode. The manager and his hugely influential first team coach – take a bow for the last three matches, Mr Brown, and now solve our new problem – carded two changes from the cakewalk against Wolves. The small-boned Nicky Forster, whose reputation as a footballer is being rapidly sullied by rumours that he is benefiting from some considerable nepotism from his manager and ex-Reading team-mate, was selected as the lone frontman, and Andy Dawson returned to the defence, with Sam Ricketts shifting flanks to account for Mills’ farewell. Danny Coles kept the armband despite Dawson’s return; an irrelevance considering Ian Ashbee will be back next week after his suspension anyway.

So, it was Myhill; Ricketts, Coles, Turner, Dawson; Fagan, Jarrett, Marney, Delaney, Elliott; Forster. Some called it a 4-3-3, but for all the work Craig Fagan and Stuart Elliott – both not culpable at all in this horror show – put in, there wasn’t any serious end product to make the switch to an attacking formation credible.

Stoke featured numerous well-known loanees – including Liam Lawrence, just signed from Sunderland and back at the KC for a second time in three weeks as a consequence, and the much-booed (ie, much admired) Lee Hendrie, a player I’d kill to have running our midfield. They also had the two largest centre forwards I’d ever seen in tandem – the contrast with our own tepid, dwarfish tactic up front was plain for all to observe.

And after 76 seconds, City lost the game. A corner was forced; Hendrie swung it outwards and Danny Higginbotham had time to book his holidays, redecorate a room and read the Financial Times prior to planting past Bo Myhill a header so disgracefully unchallenged I could half expect a few fans to walk out in disgust there and then. The Stoke fans – of whom there weren’t as many as I’d expected for a big city club – went potty, and Delilah wasn’t far behind.

As she stood there laughing, instinct took over at our end, and there seemed to be a universal feeling that City were not going to win this. Or even get a point. How a game can be summed up by its opening exchange. Old habits clearly do die hard; just as the irritating trait of conceding from crosses and set-pieces (Birmingham, Burnley, Preston) seemed to have been cured entirely, Stoke brush through the returning cobwebs and set their stall out as a result.

Stoke are a joke of a club to me because of the game at their dreadfully gappy stadium last season, when City won 3-0, Myhill saved two penalties, and home supporters started rucking among themselves. Their hopeless management situation was the subject of all ridicule and gossip in the Championship. But now they’ve got their act together. It’s not pleasant on the eye, but it’s effective.

Fielding a side based on physical awesomeness up front (the steeple-high Mamady Sidibe and the four-cornered Vincent Pericard, who can’t kick a ball the right way but can outmuscle a City defender of any name), cynicism and possession in midfield, and absolute ruthlessness in defence, Tony Pulis has one eye on the Premiership. They’re not good enough yet, and they won’t get there this season. But, despite our obvious woefulness in response to them, it’s clear that they will be hard to beat for the rest of this campaign, especially if they cling on to Hendrie for an acceptable length of time. A super player, and he knows it.

How did City respond? They played a lot of diagonal balls to the overworked Fagan whose creativity was stifled as a consequence; they played a lot of higher diagonal balls to Elliott who won an acceptable share of headers but had nowhere to send them; they sent a lot of wantonly pumped balls to Forster, presumably they’d clean forgotten that Parkin was crocked.

Forster. He obviously is a player of pedigree and calibre, but I can’t help but feel that the manager is a bit too keen to play him when the consensus elsewhere – admittedly, where it matters less, as Mr Parkinson’s judgment is the important one – is that Michael Bridges is the matchwinner, the goalscorer, the player opponents will fear. At the very least, with the Parkin factor removed, there could have been a great opportunity to space out the midfield more and play both strikers. Forster’s lack of height is the clear-as-mud problem, but there was also yesterday a question mark about his decision-making and willingness to do the thankless running a lone striker’s role demands.

City created little. Forster swung his instep at a bouncing ball after Higginbotham directed a clearance right at him, but Steve Simonsen clung on in Stoke nets. The friendless striker then incurred considerable wrath when he failed to follow the basic striker’s art of following up any potshot in case of leftovers; Jason Jarrett’s well-aimed drive was biffed out by Simonsen into the zone where any poacher would have encroached. Forster was twenty yards off, the chance had gone and the East Stand made sure his ears bled.

Other bits went for City, but not much. Elliott launched a long throw, from which Damien Delaney caused enough confusion to give Fagan a shooting chance which he skied. The odd corner – and odder symbolism of ball-throwing – came about, all of which were delivered too far, too long or into Simonsen’s gloves. Then Dean Marney, a player whose long-awaited blossoming was key to City’s recent renaissance, stung Simonsen’s fingertips with a vicious shot that the keeper could only pouch at the second attempt.

Stoke seemed happy to hang on for 1-0, and looked more than likely to do so. They had the odd tickle at the City goal again – not least when they broke sharply from a City corner after some poor decision-making from Coles, who backed off to let the dangerous Darel Russell run at him, run past him and run to the side of Ricketts to get a shot in. It was wide.

The most entertaining mini-match going on within the big one was a struggle for supremacy between Fagan and his marker, silver-haired full back Adam Griffin, ageing and astute, yet seemingly intent on destroying Fagan through deed and word after picking up a soft booking and remonstrating with the City winger-of-sorts as a consequence. He later kicked away a ball, whinged at a ref, and fouled Fagan twice more, but never saw another yellow. Still, it would have made no difference.

Half time was a boon, a blessing and a relief. In the East Stand concourse, where televisions remain invisible, the consensus was that City were bad, but Stoke were also of a low enough quality for the game to turn. After all, we had the destructions of Wolves and Southend and the frustration job on Southampton behind us. We could still beat these.

Immediately in the second half there was another reason to believe Forster wasn’t up to the job of lone striker, or indeed, Hull City footballer. Fagan benefited from a clearance to scamper ten yards clear of his man and slip the ball inside to Forster, who only had to look up and free Elliott, who was in the sort of spaciousness which any car manufacturer would have trumpeted. A simple ball, the right ball, and our best finisher, our form goalscorer, had only Simonsen to ponder.

Forster turned the other way and was immediately relieved of the ball. The ear wounds reopened. When is Steve McPhee back again?

City won a free kick at a narrow angle, though the lack of target didn’t stop Elliott from thwacking a terrific shot round and over the Stoke wall, forcing Simonsen to tip over. Then the industrious Delaney – who is a good midfielder but a better centre back than he is a midfielder, and a better centre back than the two actually playing at centre back – got into a shooting position after Marney chested it down to him, but he shot like the defender he is and the ball ended up in the South Stand.

The furious warming-up exercises of the substitutes seemed fruitless as time wore on and still Mr Parkinson, like Alf Ramsey against Poland, maintained his belief that the eleven men on the park could do it, even though none of them – as Amber Nectar’s McVie pointed out in an indignant text message – was playing as a striker. However, eventually Nicky Barmby came on. Dawson was replaced, Delaney shifted to left back and Barmby went up front. No, hang on. He went on to the left, and our effectual, dangerous left sided player Elliott went up front. Barmby is an international striker and central creator, with fresh legs and a reputation which would make Stoke look closely his way, and we stuck him on the left. He hardly kicked the ball.

Elliott then made way, as did Forster, as Bridges finally got his moment – all 15 pointless minutes of it – while the coaching staff also saw fit to put Mark Yeates on. The Tottenham prodigy of whom Mr Parkinson speaks so highly put in a turgid, control-free and uninspiring display – and that’s being kind. There’s an iron ball at the blacksmith’s with his initials on. Meanwhile, Bridges barely got involved as he was playing as – yes – a lone striker. He must be staggered at how little football he is getting. Forster ain’t gonna win a tight game for us with a moment of magic like that of Bridges at Leicester.

Stoke’s game had become about possession – keeping it as much as they could, and soaking it up as much as they could. They achieved both with pomp, if not grace. Then, as if to prove they had the swagger and arrogance to kill the game off any time they felt it appropriate, they stuffed City once and for all on 79 minutes with a breakaway which left the centre backs tackling each other and Sidibe laying a chance on a plate, with cruet and horseradish, for Russell. Myhill was a tad unfortunate to see the shot pass through his legs, but a goal was still a goal. More than ten people within touching distance of me instantly walked out of the stadium.

And that was it. Stoke’s fans spent the remaining minutage doing the conga and treating us to Delilah. It was us, however, who couldn’t take any more. This was a performance of true gutlessness. City had no ideas, no desire and no heart. There is ability in those black and amber shirts but the dumb tactics are removing so much of the players’ will to attack that they’re starting to look as if they aren’t bothered. Maybe some of them really aren’t.

There were exceptions. Fagan is on a hot streak, put more on a pedestal by the inadequacy of so many around him. Elliott is similarly focussed at the other side, although the two are going about it in their different ways, playing to strength. But at least they are trying. At least they look like they can do something, anything, to salvage something, anything. Marney looks like the footballer with breeding and nurturing we read so much about under the excitable summer headlines. Delaney and Ricketts can comfort themselves with the knowledge that they aren’t playing in their favoured positions. And the rest can have sleepless nights about how lifeless and just terrible they were. They can look at the league table and thank their lucky stars that other teams near the basement chose the same day to be rubbish.

For Norwich next week, I feel I should demand the return of Bridges, preferably alongside another striker, including Forster. Delaney should return to the defence. Ashbee will undoubtedly be back, but what about our new great enigma, John Welsh? Undoubtedly a player every City fan is agreed on – best midfielder at the club, a scrapper, a creator. And he likes it here. He likes us. He has that extra star quality. Meanwhile, the game’s powerful like him – he came on as a sub for the under 21s in midweek. So, he’s good enough for the under 21s, but not for our midfield – a midfield which has five places available to it? Sorry, but that doesn’t wash, Mr Parkinson. He belongs in our midfield, alongside Marney and Ashbee. Yet something tells me that Welsh is now fourth in the central midfield pecking order, especially with David Livermore’s return to fitness. If so, something’s gone very wrong indeed. Good luck and well done to Stoke. And to our lot, shame. (MR)