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Jon Walters has recalled how he ‘went for’ pal and captain Ryan Shawcross at half-time of Mark Hughes’s first home match in charge of Stoke City – to try to inject life and hustle into his teammates.

Stoke had been off-the-pace and were losing 1-0 at the break to Palace back in August 2013 back when Hughes had just replaced Tony Pulis. Hughes later recalled his shock at then walking down the tunnel to find two of his senior men coming to blows.

Walters has now revealed it was part of a plan he had devised on his own to shake up players including Shawcross, who had been outmuscled and outmanoeuvred by Marouane Chamakh for Palace’s opener.

The unorthodox thinking seemingly did the trick.

Stoke almost immediately drew level thanks to Charlie Adam and then Shawcross himself scored the winner, celebrating with Walters.

(Image: Steve Bould)

Walters said on his new Liquid Football show with Steve Sidwell and Kelly Cates on Joe: “I don’t think I ever had a bust-up on the training ground – but in the changing room… yeah.

“One of them was the first home game of the season, we had Crystal Palace. They were winning at half-time and I think Ryan (Shawcross) was getting skinned by Dwight Gayle but I thought we were dead on the pitch.

“We’d had a great pre-season but first home game, we were dead on the pitch.

“So I thought, something needs to happen – who can I pick on to just get everyone going?

“Without telling anyone, I came in and I’ve gone for Ryan. Me and him had a little… and he was throwing bottles at me and everyone jumped in between.

“I only did it to get everyone going and we went out and got a good result in the end. I think we won in the end.

“There were other times with the players, one time with Steven Nzonzi at Stoke. Just stupid things but more to get a reaction than anything else.”

(Image: Steve Bould)

Shawcross might have been smiling when he left the stadium that night but it doesn’t sound like he was overly impressed at the time with Walters’ plan.

Walters said: “I said to him after the game that, ‘I’d only did it to wind you up because you were **** in the first half. You were having one in the first half and it was dead and the fans were on us so I only did it to get a reaction from you.’

“And he was better second half so it worked.

“Was he happy I’d done it? He wasn’t at the time!”

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