Stoke City continue to climb the table as well as contest the Capital One Cup, though thanks to a late own goal and a particularly brainless Norwich dismissal they found three points easier to come by than might have been expected against relegation-threatened opponents.
Norwich managed to come back once after Gary O’Neil’s daft first-half offence, felling Ibrahim Afellay just as the ball was running out of play, but the odds on a second recovery became impossible when Ryan Bennett headed a free-kick beyond his own goalkeeper 12 minutes from time.
“We’ve fluffed our lines a couple of times recently so that could be a key result for us,” Mark Hughes said on seeing his side move up to seventh.
“We are roughly where we want to be in the table, the rest of the season will be about digging in and seeing if we can get any higher.”
Stoke could have opened the scoring inside 10 minutes when Joselu and Marko Arnautovic combined to break clear from halfway. The former’s return pass was a perfectly weighted chip that virtually invited Arnautovic to shoot without breaking stride, though the effort lacked conviction and Declan Rudd was able to push the ball round his right-hand post.
After Jonny Howson had recorded Norwich’s first effort with an ambitious drive that cleared Jack Butland’s bar Arnautovic was involved again, finding space on the left to send in a cross to the near post that Jon Walters met without managing to hit the target. Joselu came closest to breaking the deadlock before the interval when he stole in to reach a reverse pass from Arnautovic only to put his shot the wrong side of a post.
Norwich had two chances to go in front before unnecessarily handicapping themselves. Butland gifted them the first, finding only Wes Hoolahan with a poor clearance then watching in relief as the midfielder’s shot from distance passed safely clear of an unguarded goal. He atoned with a point-blank save from Bennett following a corner. While a striker might have made more of the chance Butland was equal to the defender’s attempt, and Stoke were left to rue their missed opportunities when O’Neil was sent off moments later.
Despite a furious crowd reaction and Hughes leaping out of his dugout to express his own displeasure the Norwich player’s challenge on Afellay was probably not as bad as it looked. There was absolutely no need for O’Neil to steam in with a scissors-type tackle as Affellay shepherded the ball across the touchline, and though the challenge was more senseless than dangerous there were few grumbles at a straight red. “It was a bad decision, but from Gary,” Alex Neil said. “It was completely out of character, he apologised at the interval, but it cost us.”
Stoke failed to make their numerical superiority count before half-time but took the lead four minutes after the restart with a trademark Walters goal. Arnautovic was nearly dispossessed by Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe in the build-up on the left flank, though when the ball rebounded back to him he hit a sumptuous first-time cross met at the far post with practised ease by Walters, recalled to the side because Xherdan Shaqiri faces a fortnight out after straining a hamstring in training.
The visitors had not ventured out of their own half by that stage of the second half, though when they finally crossed the halfway line they made it count at the first attempt. Throwing caution to the wind and a few bodies up front, Hoolahan’s cross was neatly chested back by Odjidja-Ofoe for Howson to have a crack from the edge of the area, and the midfielder produced an unstoppable drive that Butland had no chance of keeping out.
That briefly set up a contest, with the Norwich fans chanting: “We’ve only got 10 men,” before Joselu restored the home side’s lead midway through the second half, finding Rudd’s bottom-right corner with a right-foot shot after taking a pass from Afellay on the edge of the area.
The influential Afellay also supplied the free-kick from which Bennett scored the final goal, as well as the corner that saw Peter Crouch bring a late save from Rudd to prevent Stoke making it four.
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