Saido Berahino banished to Stoke’s U23s by boss Paul Lambert who is furious over striker’s poor timekeeping
Potters' flop has not scored a Premier League goal for two years and his career now has really hit rock bottom
SAIDO BERAHINO has been banished to Stoke’s U23s after boss Paul Lambert lost patience with the player’s timekeeping.
Only a week ago, Lambert said the ‘penny had dropped’ for £12million striker Berahino after he had been ordered to undergo a separate fitness programme.
But he arrived late for an Under-23 game this week.
And hardline Lambert ordered him to train away from the rest of the first team squad ahead of tomorrow’s key home clash with Spurs.
Berahino is believed to have been fined for the incident which happened on Easter Monday with Stoke’s second string playing Aston Villa.
Lambert had warned the player that he needs to have the ‘fear of failure’ he had in his playing days.
Berahino signed for Stoke 15 months ago but has flopped.
And the controversial star - who has not scored in the Premier League for two years - has clearly not taken Lambert’s words on board.
Lambert said earlier yesterday: “You’ve got to be fair to everybody else and I don’t like it when the discipline is not there, or there’s always continuous things going wrong.
“It’s important for the football club that it’s done right and to the high standards I expect.
“I don’t expect anything that I wasn’t doing myself.
“I’ve been at big clubs myself and I expect people to do it the way I did.
“If you’ve one chink in that, it’s no good.
“And that’s the thing, I wasn’t letting that happen to this club.”
Lambert has already fined defender Erik Pieters for being pictured on a night out less than 24 hours before a game.
And week he banished Dutch playmaker Ibrahim Affelay from the club for a disciplinary matter.
Lambert said of that incident: “There were just things going on and I thought: `No, I’m not having this under my watch. Enough is enough.’
“Abby always pretty trained pretty well, but it was the right thing to do. It was nothing against me, I just called it the way I saw fit and that was it, done.
"It was my decision and it’s been put to bed."