It was way back in March and the Austrians found themselves sweating it against the Moldovans in the early rounds of Europe’s World Cup qualifiers.
15 minutes from time and Marko Arnautiovic finally broke the deadlock before Harnik added one at the dead end to make it 2-0.
Football nowadays seems to be evolving to the point where the ease at which smaller teams are now as difficult as facing strong sides. For some reason talent-disadvantaged sides now tend to play towards their strength.
It is what brought about the legend of bus parking where a team having accepted their limitedness in terms of talent resides to placing 10 men behind the ball in a bid to frustrate more the talent-sophisticated opponent and rely on converting the energy stored from not running around the whole pitch into one that could be used to execute surgical counterattacks.
That is where players in the mould of Marko Arnautiovic come in handy. The ability to pull tricks out of their bags are what players like the Austrian offer their sides and to a large extent bail out their coaches out of tight corners.
Since Stoke sacked Tony Pulis in search of a prettier brand of football, Mark Hughes can be said to have done a pretty good job of granting the wishes of the stands and that of the board room as he has kept them safe from relegation while at the same time maintaining their status as a mid table team.
Hughes have been able to do that by playing an expansive brand of attacking football which means his team often find themselves in positions where they have to carve out opportunities when facing at least half of the rest of the league.That is why he can’t afford to lose the Austrian.