Hull 0 - 2 Stoke

Hull 0 - 2 Stoke

Stoke City add to Hull’s woe thanks to Xherdan Shaqiri’s brilliance

Away team scorers
Xherdan Shaqiri 26
Xherdan Shaqiri 50

Xherdan Shaqiri’s superb double secured back-to-back Premier League wins for Stoke City, whose 2-0 victory sent Hull City spiralling into the bottom three.

Shaqiri ran the show for Stoke, lighting up an otherwise ordinary game with superb strikes in each half as Mark Hughes’ side followed up last week’s first league win of the season against Sunderland with their first league success on the road.

It was another chastening experience for Hughes’s former Manchester United team-mate Mike Phelan, who on this showing does not possess the calibre of player who can compete with players of the calibre of Shaqiri and Marko Arnautovic. Hull slipped to their fifth straight Premier League defeat and their second since appointing Phelan on a permanent basis.

Shaqiri fired tamely wide in the opening exchanges and the Hull captain, Michael Dawson, making his first appearance of the season because of a knee injury, was alert enough to head Erik Pieters’ dangerous cross out for a corner.

Will Keane, preferred again up front instead of the Uruguay forward Abel Hernández, had Hull’s first effort, blocked by Stoke’s captain, Ryan Shawcross, and then headed Ryan Mason’s cross well wide.

The first 25 minutes had been so poor it came as a big surprise when, out of nowhere, Shaqiri lifted the tedium with a stunning opening goal. The Switzerland international was not closed down quickly enough on the edge of the penalty area and took full advantage to curl a brilliant left-footed shot away from the Hull goalkeeper, David Marshall, and inside his near post.

Stoke almost struck again three minutes later. Arnautovic raced on to Shaqiri’s ball over the top and when his shot was blocked by Marshall’s feet, the ball ricocheted on to Dawson and rebounded back over the crossbar. Dawson’s superb last-ditch tackle then denied Wilfried Bony, on a season-long loan from Manchester City, his first goal of the season and Hull were grateful to head into the break just one goal down.

Phelan’s side fell further behind five minutes after the restart, however, after Curtis Davies’s foul on Shaqiri two yards outside the area. There was little doubt who would take the free-kick and Shaqiri curled the ball up and over the wall and inside Marshall’s left post.

Bony was denied again when his angled shot flew wide after he had raced clear into the area and Joe Allen, scorer of four goals in his previous three league games, was thwarted at the far post by Marshall’s fine save.

Phelan sent on the substitutes Hernández, Harry Maguire and Adama Diomandé in quick succession, but it was Stoke, full of confidence now as they appear to have put another slow start to the season behind them, who continued to look the more threatening.

Guardian