Potters Lose Despite Early Gift from Rooney - Man Utd 4 - 2 Stoke City

Manchester United had to come from behind as Stoke City took a shock lead at Old Trafford through a Wayne Rooney own goal, but the home side romped home to a 4-2 victory leaving Stoke frustrated.

Stoke started fantastically, playing United off the park and genuinely looking the better side. After 11 minutes, Jonathan Walters was felled & the resulting Charlie Adam free-kick was nodded into the net by England’s new temporary captain, Wayne Rooney. Stoke almost doubled their lead with a chance for Adam, whereas an even better chance for Jonathan Walters was well saved by keeper David De Gea. This was to prove to be a turning point in the game, and moments later, United equalised for the home side through the same name. Rooney made up for his earlier faux pas by heading past the Stoke keeper on 27 minutes.

Paul Scholes was perhaps lucky to stay on the field after a couple of arguably bookable offences went unnoticed, but a goal from Robin Van Persie on 44 minutes, allowed the visitors to take the lead and go into half time in the lead. It was perhaps a little unfair on Stoke and proved to be a fairly substantial goal as the home side came back after the break to immediately extend their lead to 3-1 through Danny Welbeck. The attacking trio of Welbeck, Rooney & Van Persie were strong & in fine form, but at the other end, a shaky United defence allowed Stoke a lifeline. Kightly’s promising run pierced the defence before his shot took a fairly lucky deflection off Rio Ferdinand and into the net. It was the 7^th goal United have conceded in 4 Premiership home games, a record for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side and the highest tally in 36 years.

The home side wrapped up things going into the final 25 minutes as Rooney sealed his 200^th club goal in the Premier League and made up for his earlier error in entirety. It was a noble display from Stoke in a match they were always expected to lose and had the side taken their first half chances, it could have been a completely different story.

Ultimately, I wish we could have snatched something and at times we looked very capable of doing so, but we were up against one of the strongest attacking sides in the league and looked incapable of coping with the prowess of a strike force consisting of two strikers that took 57 goals between them last year. It was a fair result on the balance of play, but evidence of the progress that the team has made in a match we so nearly took something from.

Manchester United: De Gea, Rafael, Evans, Ferdinand, Evra, Valencia (Nani 74), Carrick, Scholes (Anderson 70), Rooney, Welbeck (Hernandez 78), Van Persie.

Stoke City: Begovic, Cameron, Shawcross, Huth, Wilson, Walters (Etherington 70), N’Zonzi, Whitehead (Palacios 86), Adam, Kightly (Owen 74), Crouch.

Report by Ross Hancock