English Premier League: Stoke City 1-2 Tottenham Hotspurs, Match Report
The Wales international, Gareth Bales scored twice to give his club a 2-1 win over Stoke City, who are left with no points from their two Premier League games.
Bale’s goal was unexpected and unintentional, but it gave Spurs the lead, only to be equalized by Ricardo Fuller. The match seemed to be going very evenly until Bale struck again, this time with a stunning volley, which deserves to win the goal of the month.
With all three goals in the first half, the second half seemed to be dull and monotonous, until the last few minutes. Jonathan Walters, who was featuring for Stoke City for the first time, had his shot cleared by Peter Crouch from behind the goal line.
This is Stoke City’s second defeat in two weeks; the first one coming against Wolves on the opening day of the season, the management should start worrying right about now. Their record signing Kenwyne Jones was missing from action and instead of playing Tuncay, manager Tony Pulis chose to give new signing Walters a start.
Tottenham Spurs made five changes to the side that had lost 3-2 to Switzerland’s Young Boys in the Europa League play offs first leg. It was reported that most of the changes were injury related, forwards Jermaine Defoe, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Robbie Keane were sidelined, with midfielder Luka Modric joining them.
If the first half was taken as any sign of how the game would play out, many would have predicted a Stoke City win. Stoke played direct, attacking football with Tottenham focusing on keeping the ball on the ground. However it did not take long for Spurs to show that they were undoubtedly the better side.
Goal scorer Bale and Aaron Lennon were particularly impressive as they teamed up to produce the first goal within the first 19 minutes on the game. Lennon made an excellent run down the left flank and clipped a diagonal pass to Bale. The first attempt was saved by Stoke City keeper Sorensen, the clearance was headed in my Peter Crouch, which was cleared off by Shawcross, but it landed in front of Bale, who didn’t miss the second time.
It took Stoke only six minutes to equalize, which was a result of poor defending by Spurs. Younes Kaboul’s clearance was very weak, as was Huddlestone’s marking of Fuller, who scored and made the score line 1-1.
And it took Spurs another five minutes to score another goal. Once again it was Bale who struck for Spurs, provided by a cross from Lennon, Bale produced a left foot volley that despite the difficult angle, ended at the back of the net.
After that, it was Spurs’ game, they were in control for the larger part of the remaining half. Stoke had some opportunities to equalize again, but they were wasted as the shots went straight at the keeper. Maybe Green or Reina would have managed to miss them, but Heurelho Gomes dealt with them effectively.
When Tuncay was brought on in the 64th minute, Stoke seemed a revitalized side. The Turks first touch to the ball was a shot at goal, which forced a save from Gomes, but the keeper held his gorund. Shawcross and Tuncay then led a series of attacks on the Spurs goal, which was defended well by Gomes.
The talking point of the game however, was the controversial clearance of Etherington’s shot by Peter Crouch. But the referee refused to give the goal and waved for play to continue. Protests by Stoke players continued for several minutes, those and Sidibe’s injury led to seven minutes being added to the 90 minutes.
But Stoke could not do in 7 minutes what they had failed to do in 45, thought some may argue the final score should have read 2-2, instead of the 2-1 to Tottenham Spurs. Spurs take an important away win, while Stoke are left with two defeats, not a brilliant start to the season.
Tags: