Stoke’s MotM From Derby Is Obvious When You Think About It

Wednesday evening’s Championship action for Stoke City saw us host manager Gary Rowett’s former club at the Bet365 Stadium, Derby County.

Stoke opened the scoring 24 minutes into the game as summer capture Sam Clucas found the back of the net to give us a 1-0 advantage, but we then saw Oghenekaro Etebo shown a straight red card for his clash with Richard Keogh.

The visitors levelled things up five minutes after the restart but Tom Ince restored our advantage just after the hour mark to take all three points in a 2-1 win and give Rowett bragging rights over his former side.

It wasn’t pretty and Derby dominating the stats, but we held firm and hit when it count.

Grabbing both a goal and an assist on the evening, it’s no surprise to see goalscorer Clucas take Whoscored’s star man rating with 8.08.

The top five performers on the day were completed by Joe Allen (7.77), fellow goalscorer Ince (7.76), goalkeeper Jack Butland (7.14) and Ryan Woods (7.11).

On-loan Everton man Ashley Williams was the other player to receive a 7+ rating but three points are three points.