Stoke vs. Manchester United: Winners and Losers from Premier League Game
Stoke City and Manchester United played out a 1-1 draw in the first Premier League match of 2015 on Thursday at the Britannia Stadium.
Ryan Shawcross scored off a corner in the first 90 seconds of the game after poor marking from United, before almost a mirror-image at the opposite end saw Radamel Falcao net a close-range strike for the equaliser.
Stoke had a great appeal for a penalty turned down as set pieces continued to provide the best route to goal for both sides, but neither found a winning strike.
Here are all of our winners and losers from the game.
Losers: Defending off Set Pieces
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Set pieces remain relevant. Manchester United and Stoke City both remain poor at defending them.
Pre-game, the Mirror reported on these sides being two of the three which have conceded the fewest goals from open play so far this season—but Stoke conceded their 11th set-piece goal of the season in the game, while United didn't fare much better.
Marking was nonexistent, second balls were not cleared and even both 'keepers didn't really cover themselves in glory from deliveries out in the channels.
Winner: Mame Biram Diouf
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Stoke striker Mame Biram Diouf played particularly well. He worked tremendously hard down both channels, playing just off striker Peter Crouch to link play in midfield and give his team an out-ball whenever possible. That was especially the case in the first half, when Stoke largely played on the counter-attack.
His pace and strength are very different attributes to any of his striking partners—Crouch against United, Bojan Krkic at other times—and his direct running causes problems aplenty.
He certainly should have scored to put Stoke 2-0 up in the first half, but he was a big asset to his team nonetheless.
Loser: Jonny Evans
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2015 hasn't gotten off to a great start for Jonny Evans, who really needs to improve on his second half of 2014 showings.
The centre-back, playing left of the three against Stoke, was bullied and harassed by Mame Biram Diouf. He conceded a great chance through his inability to deal with a simple bouncing ball and just looked a shadow of a top-class defender all-round.
The assumption has to be that a fit Marcos Rojo will walk back into the team.
Winner: Rafael
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Right-back Rafael was only on the pitch for a short while, but he made two good defensive contributions—one a key header clear at the back post after a corner—and got himself into a shooting chance at the other end.
The wing-back role should be ideally suited to the offensive-minded Brazilian, so with Ashley Young out injured during this game and Antonio Valencia missing altogether, this might be his perfect chance to show Van Gaal that he can contribute going forward.
If he can take his chance in the way Young has done this term, mostly from the opposite flank, he could bring further balance and quality to the 3-5-2 set-up.
Loser: Robin Van Persie
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Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal persists with trying to get all four of his star attackers into the team, but inevitably one or more are not firing in any given game.
Against Stoke, it was Robin van Persie who was hugely marginalised, being unable to get the better of Shawcross and Co. in defence and barely receiving any service with his runs in behind the home back four.
He touched the ball only 17 times during the match, per Opta, only once really seeing an opportunity to score which he put wide. Generally, he didn't really contribute to United's buildup play at all. He'll have better 10-minute spells than this, never mind better games.
