Patrick Rees
Match Report: Stoke City 2-2 Manchester United
Manchester United’s perfect start to the new Premier League season was finally put to rest after a resilient Stoke City defence managed to hold the Red Devils to a 2-2 draw, courtesy of a brace from Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting.
Jose Mourinho made three changes to the squad that faced Leicester last time, with Matteo Darmian making his way into the line-up. Furthermore, a midfield pair of Nemanja Matic and Ander Herrera was deployed while Juan Mata was dropped.
The hosts made a good start, as in as early as the second minute, striker Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting was released with a fine pass. But Eric Bailly was strong enough to ward off the danger. In reply, Manchester United launched a quick counter with Marcus Rashford testing Stoke’s pace, but to no effect. Just a minute later, Jese Rodriguez tried his luck on goal but his shot sailed off the post and the chance went begging; all this in the span of 3 minutes.
Stoke were completely organised and were giving United a tough run for their money. A towering presence of Kurt Zouma, Kevin Wimmer and Geoff Cameron was enough to minimise the threat of Marcus Rashford and Romelu Lukaku.
The deadlock was broken just a couple of minutes before the first half and all down to Matteo Darmian’s poor marking. Former Manchester United man, Mame Biram Diouf was floating on the right-hand side of the field, all alone, and was given all the time to deliver an inviting ball into the box. Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting chased down the ball and ended De Gea’s hopes of keeping his fourth consecutive clean sheet, with a fine finish.
Their celebration was short lived as a Paul Pogba header was deflected into the back of the net. It was United who took the lead then. Matteo Darmian had won the ball and had made a run toward’s Stoke’s half before finding Henrikh Mkhitaryan. The Armenian released Romelu Lukaku and he, even after missing his first attempt, added the second for United.
Stoke, however, responded firmly and got their well-deserved equaliser after Maxim Choupo-Moting headed the ball into the back of the net from Shaqiri’s inswinging corner. Chances were far and between for the both the sides, but courtesy to a fine goalkeeping efforts, the score remained intact.
Having said that, United’s perfect start has finally halted and this is how the fans reacted to it on Twitter:
Disappointing. Could have and should have played much better than we did. Hard earned point.
— Anna_MUFC (@mufc_anna) September 9, 2017
Take the point and move on poor 2day but got a point & had a couple of good chances for a 3rd. On another day we would of got over line ⚫️🔴
— John Seymour (@Johnno_62) September 9, 2017
Defensively we were poor today
— Carl Goldsmith (@carl8869) September 9, 2017
Weak defending cost us
— Fergie Time (@WilmslowKeith) September 9, 2017
Found myself wanting Fellani to come on at the end why wasn’t he on the bench
— Peter 🐝 (@pg231076) September 9, 2017
And that is why I absolutely despise international breaks, no rhythm at all. Didn’t create enough, defending was calamitous #STKMUN #MUFC
— Notorious Abhishek (@Burnt_Prodigy) September 9, 2017
Needed Fellani badly in this game #STKMUN #MUFC
— Jeeshnu Desai (@jeeshnu_desai) September 9, 2017
Lukaku making sure Zlatan isn’t missed. Equally good at missing chances #STKMUN
— Hemant Dixit (@hvdixit7) September 9, 2017
2 defensive lapses cost us 2 points..overall the team played drab football.Fellaini was a big miss;tailor-made for such games #MUFC #STKMUN
— Rohan Sengupta (@GarryDevilDada) September 9, 2017
The only silver lining to playing Stoke now is that we don’t play them away at a critical juncture in the season. #MUFC #STKMUN
— VB (@_Venky_B) September 9, 2017
This dribble though 😩#STKMUN pic.twitter.com/beSIa4Houy
— Bimbo_La (@bimbolanko) September 9, 2017
Even after all this,
Lukaku is still the top scorer
Mkhitaryan is still the top assister@ManUtd still unbeaten @ManUtd still on top of the table
#STKMUN— Michael Oloo (@Michael_Oloo254) September 9, 2017
