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MOTD- Stoke City 2-1 Manchester United

By on February 1, 2014

If there has been anything so far this season to signify that Manchester United’s top four hopes were over, this would be it.  Tomorrow they will most likely be nine points away from that Champions League fourth spot in the Premier League, but what is worse is that they still managed to lose to Stoke City even with Juan Mata, Wayne Rooney, and Robin van Persie featuring in red the whole ninety minutes.  The put an even deeper frown, if possible, upon David Moyes’ face is the fact that out of the eight league matches in which Adnan Januzaj has not appeared in for United, only two of them the Red Devils won.

So it’s a wonder why Januzaj is yet to appear alongside Mata. Rafa Benitez paired Eden Hazard alongside Mata last season at Chelsea, and ended up winning the Europa League, a competition that is beginning to be increasingly unlikely for United to get into. Escecillyt with a loss at Stoke, which will be an even harder pill for Moyes to swallow then their Capital One Cup defeat at Sunderland in penalties considering United never lost to The Potters under Sir Alex Ferguson. But then again, when watching the match at the Britannia it looked nothing like a Ferguson side.

Stoke even started slightly brighter than United, although Wayne Rooney gave Stoke hearts a scare thirteen minutes in when he met Ashley Young’s cross from the left with a sharp volley at the near post which whizzed just wide of the woodwork. United began to find their footing, but gifted Stoke a goal in the thirty-seventh minute as Charlie Adam was fouled forty yards out from goal.  Surprisingly the Scot decided to have a go from the full forty yards and despite the fact that his drilled effort wasn’t particularly special it still found it’s way into the back of the net as Michael Carrick backed off when attempting to block it, allowing the ball to deflect off his knee.  The deflection wrong-footed David de Gea and bounced into the back of the net, but Moyes found some comfort in his side’s response to going down. Tom Cleverly came so close to equalizing moments after the restart, only for Asmir Begovic just get a hand on the midfielder’s low bouncing twenty-five yard effort to tip it away.

In one of the better moments of the match for United they actually did find an equalizer four minutes into the second half, but it took some luck with Marc Wilson tripping as he attempted to clear Chris Smalling’s long ball.  The ball then fell to the feet of Mata, who tapped it to Van Persie on the volley, and the Dutch forward guided it over the head of Begovic into the back of the net from fifteen yards out to score what it was easy to see as the beginning of United’s comeback. However, Stoke were having none of that, and Adam fired home an absolute cracker to put the home side back in front in the fiftieth minute.  Jonathan Walters headed it down on for Marko Arnautovic on the edge of the area, and although Arnautovic fluffed his shot the ball fell to Adam, who smacked a stunning screamer into the top right corner leaving De Gea no chance at stopping it from nesting in the back of the net.

Oussama Assaid nearly made it three in the seventy-seventh minute, only for De Gea to somehow tip his dipping fifteen yard volley over the bar, but United began to pile up the pressure in the final minutes.  Young headed Smalling’s cross wide of the target from six yards in completely open space before Begovic astonishingly managed to tip Rooney’s beautiful curling free-kick onto the post to keep things level.  United were then given seven minutes of added time to make things even more interesting, but not even some Moyesie time was enough for the side now sitting in seventh place in the Premier League to keep the match from ending 2-1 in Stoke’s favor.
Man of the Match: Charlie Adam

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.