A poor start to the Championship campaign of 2018/19 after last season’s relegation continued in midweek as Stoke City lost out to newly promoted Wigan Athletic, so fans were praying we’d finally get ourselves up and running under Gary Rowett as we hosted Hull City at the Bet365 Stadium earlier today.
A ninth-minute goal from James McClean proved to be the perfect tonic in a far improved and dominating performance from the first team and we made life more comfortable for ourselves just ahead of the hour mark as a Mame Biram Diouf effort took a deflection off defender Jordy de Wijs and looped into the net.
The visitors were then quickly reduced to ten men as midfielder Evandro picked up a second yellow card, so we eased to victory in the minutes that remained and saw off whatever threat they then posed.
At least Rowett is now off the mark for the year as we make it five points from our opening Championship matches and at least the search for a win is now not hanging around our necks, so fingers crossed the side can grow in confidence now and really kick on and the clean sheet will only help that.
Bet365 Stadium
Championship
25/08/2018 4:00 pm
Attendance: 23311
Referee: Bond
| Stoke City | Hull City | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| McClean (9), de Wijs (og 59) | |||||||
| Butland | Marshall | ||||||
| Martina | Lichaj | ||||||
| Shawcross | Burke | ||||||
| Martins Indi | de Wijs | ||||||
| Pieters | Kingsley | ||||||
| Diouf | 88 | Bowen | 78 | ||||
| Allen | Henriksen | ||||||
| Etebo | Batty | ||||||
| McClean | Kane | 67 | |||||
| Berahino | 80 | Evandro | |||||
| Crouch | 80 | Campbell | 63 | ||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Bauer | 88 | Stewart | 78 | ||||
| Afobe | 80 | Dicko | 63 | ||||
| Adam | Toral | ||||||
| Fletcher | Long | ||||||
| Bojan | 80 | Keane | 67 | ||||
| Federici | Curry | ||||||
| Souttar | McKenzie | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 11 | Goal attempts | 4 |
| 5 | On Target | 0 |
| 8 | Corners | 5 |
| 8 | Fouls | 11 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 1 |
| 65 | % | 35 |