Fulham not quite blown away by early barrage

It wasn’t quite the game of two halves that pundits to love to talk about but Stoke City nearly undid all of their hard work.

In the first half, Stoke City, the team who couldn’t buy a goal recently, struck three teams and were unlucky not to get more.

The first two goals may have came from set-pieces which may have some folk saying “typical Stoke” but the third goal was very well worked.

A flowing move down the left hand side, including a number of one-touch passes saw the ball worked into the box where a backwards head flick released Sidibe in the centre of the penalty box.

The ball was fired into the ground and it bounced it over the despairing dive of Mark Schwarzer.

Stoke scored more goals in the first half of this match than they had in their previous six matches, so it has definitely been a happy new year for Tony Pullis and his team.

However, the loss of Tuncay with a hamstring injury before half-time would have put a slight dampener on the joyous atmosphere that was reverberating around the Britannia Stadium.

Things were to get colder in the second when a deflected Damien Duff shot gave Fulham hope but it was a stunning Clint Dempsey strike that really got the game going.

At 3-2, it could have went either but Fulham, for all their pressing, couldn’t get the third goal which would have broken Stoke hearts.

Stoke are now tenth in the league but remain a few games away from the relegation zone. It is a crazy season in the English Premier League this year.

Can Stoke use this win as a springboard?

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