You're quite correct that Stoke defended well, it's what O'Neill teams do and was only to be expected. What frustrates is that why didn't Mowbray set the team up to counteract that? When what he'd started with clearly wasn't working, why didn't he change the formation and pattern of play?
There's thousands of us that knew what game to expect and that we wouldn't have the nous to break it down, it wasn't a surprise. Mowbray and his team should have had a trick or two up their sleeve but they didn't, as per usual.
It's so bloody frustrating that we can see it but evidently they can't. Possession where it doesn't matter counts for bugger all.