Manchester United 3 Stoke 2

Javier Hernandez

Man­chester Uni­ted 3 Sto­ke City 2, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Oct­ober 26, 2013. Reign­ing Pre­mier Lea­gue Cham­pi­ons Man­chester Uni­ted ma­naged to be­at Sto­ke City in a hard-fou­ght and very tight ga­me. A goal each by Robin van Per­sie, Way­ne Roo­ney, and Javi­er Her­nandez re­spect­ively ev­entually saw Uni­ted run out de­served 3-2 win­ners in the end.

Af­ter de­feat­ing Span­ish La Liga te­am Re­al So­ciedad by 1-0 at Old Traf­ford in the Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue just three days earli­er, Man­chester Uni­ted switched their at­ten­tion to the Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue as they played hosts to Sto­ke City who had be­en held to a goal­less draw by West Brom­wich Al­bion the week be­fore. Uni­ted had com­fort­ably beaten Sto­ke 2-0 at Brit­an­nia Sta­dium thanks to goals from Mi­chael Car­rick and Robin van Per­sie in the pre­vi­ous meet­ing be­tween the two te­ams and were firm fa­vour­ites to over­come The Pot­ters at ho­me. The Stafford­shire si­de nev­er­the­less went in­to an early lead when a clear­ance from North­ern Ire­land de­fender Jon­ny Evans hit Pe­ter Crouch and flew in­to the back of the net af­ter just four min­utes of play. Man­chester Uni­ted struck back two min­utes ahead of the break as Robin van Per­sie equal­ised from clo­se ran­ge, on­ly for Marko Ar­nautovic to re­store the lead for the vis­it­ors wi­th a curl­ing free-kick a couple of min­utes la­ter in the closely con­tested mat­ch. Then, wi­th twelve min­utes left of the clash, Way­ne Roo­ney head­ed ho­me well taken a cor­ner by Van Per­sie be­fore sec­ond ha­lf sub­sti­tute Javi­er Her­nandez pro­duced a late win­ning goal for Uni­ted when he nod­ded a Pat­rice Ev­ra cross pa­st away goal­keeper As­mir Be­govick and in­to the net in the 80th min­ute of the tie. Af­ter the ho­me vic­tory over Sto­ke City, re­cently ap­poin­ted Man­chester Uni­ted boss Da­vid Moyes praised the ho­me sup­port­ers say­ing they had be­en ter­rif­ic and had played a big part in get­ting the res­ult. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Chris Small­ing, Phil Jones, Jon­ny Evans, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Shinji Ka­gawa, Mi­chael Car­rick, Lu­is Nani, Tom Clev­er­ley, Robin van Per­sie, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: Ra­fael da Silva, An­tonio Va­lencia, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, Ad­nan Januzaj, Ash­ley Young, Javi­er Her­nandez, An­ders Linde­gaard. Sto­ke City Te­am: As­mir Be­gov­ic, Ro­bert Huth, Er­ik Pieters, Ry­an Shaw­cross, Ge­off Camer­on, Ste­ven N’Zonzi, Steph­en Ire­land, Wil­son Pala­cios, Pe­ter Crouch, Jon Wal­ters, Marko Ar­nautovic. Sub­stitutes: Andy Wilkin­son, Char­lie Ad­am, Marc Wil­son, Ous­sama As­saidi, Glenn Whelan, Ken­wyne Jones, Tho­mas Sorensen.

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