Manchester United 4 Stoke 2

Man­chester Uni­ted 4 Sto­ke City 2, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Oct­ober 20, 2012. Man­chester Uni­ted over­came Sto­ke City by a com­fort­able 4–2 mar­gin at Old Traf­ford. And even tho­ugh the ag­gress­ively com­mit­ted away te­am gave a reas­on­ably good ac­count of them­selves, the red shir­ted men proved far too strong for the over­worked vis­it­ors in the end.

Af­ter a long in­ter­na­tion­al break, Man­chester Uni­ted were back in ac­tion as they played host to Sto­ke City at Old Traf­ford. Totally ag­ainst the run of play, the Brit­an­nia Sta­dium club went ahead thanks to a rare own goal from Way­ne Roo­ney in the el­ev­enth min­ute of the high scor­ing Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue en­counter. The Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al re­deemed him­self, how­ever, when he con­ver­ted a fine cross from fel­low for­ward Robin van Per­sie to make it 1-1 in the 27th min­ute of ac­tion. Then, in the last min­ute of the fir­st pe­riod, Man­chester Uni­ted edged in front as rock­et heeled flank­man Va­lencia bril­liantly cros­sed for the al­ways dan­ger­ous Van Per­sie who net­ted from clo­se ran­ge. On­ly a min­ute af­ter the re­sump­tion, the Old Traf­ford troops ev­entually went on to score their third goal of the af­ter­noon when Roo­ney fou­nd fel­low Three Li­ons play­er Dan­ny Wel­beck who­se power­ful diving head­er flew in­to the back of the net leav­ing help­less Bos­nia and Herzegov­ina goal­keeper As­mir Be­gov­ic wi­th no chan­ce to save what­soever. Af­ter the mor­ale sap­ping Man­chester Uni­ted charge, The Pot­ters fou­nd enough com­pos­ure to re­duce the de­fi­cit as Eng­land U21 in­ter­na­tion­al wing­er Mi­chael Kightly ham­mered ho­me in the 58th min­ute of the fix­ture, on­ly for the red shirts to re­store their two goal lead when a well taken flag kick from Van the Man was poked in­to the net by Waz­za af­ter 65 min­utes of fierce ac­tion. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Ra­fael da Silva, Jon­athan Evans, Rio Fer­dinand, Pat­rice Ev­ra, An­tonio Va­lencia, Paul Scho­les, Mi­chael Car­rick, Way­ne Roo­ney, Dan­ny Wel­beck, Robin van Per­sie. Sub­stitutes: An­ders Linde­gaard, Scott Woot­ton, Oli­veira An­der­son, Ry­an Gig­gs, Lu­is Nani, Nick Pow­ell, Javi­er Her­nandez. Sto­ke City Te­am: As­mir Be­gov­ic, Ro­bert Huth, Ry­an Shaw­cross, Ge­off Camer­on, Marc Wil­son, Char­lie Ad­am, Ste­ven N’Zonzi, Dean White­head, Mi­chael Kightly, Jon Wal­ters, Pe­ter Crouch. Sub­stitutes: Tho­mas Sor­ensen, Andy Wilkin­son, Mat­thew Up­son, Mat­thew Eth­er­ing­ton, Wil­son Pala­cios, Ken­wyne Jones, Mi­chael Owen.

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