#2 Stoke wasteful in possession and finishing
Mark Hughes would have been irked to see the manner in which his side lost the ball cheaply on numerous occasions in a bid to lay the counter-punch on Manchester United. The clearances made from the United penalty area didn’t really find the required target – Wilfried Bony. Even when Bony was found, he failed to hold the ball up for his teammates and his first touches were quite poor.
For all of United’s dominance, Stoke could have got the lead themselves at various points of the game, but were guilty of some average finishing. Geoff Cameron missed a couple of promising opportunities, both resulting in tame shots straight into David de Gea’s gloves.
Joe Allen also could not generate any pace in his shot from 10 yards out after rounding off Chris Smalling. Nonetheless, they would later grab an equaliser thanks to a double-error by the opposition.
