Stoke City saw off West Bromwich Albion in the first round of the Carabao Cup at the bet365 Stadium.
The Potters took the lead after Ki-Jana Hoever's clever ball found our new target man Wesley in the 18 yard box, who elegantly managed to spin and shoot with the ball creeping under the visiting goalkeeper Josh Griffiths. Whilst celebrations were high, Wesley would find out that he would left to wait for his first official Stoke City goal, after his effort was awarded as an own goal.
After the goal, a positive passage of play resumed, with no real clear cut chances following in the action which led us to Half Time. Whilst no goals or chances took place, the referee, Geoff Eltringham was quick to dish out a few of his yellow cards, with former player, Erik Pieters and 16 year old debutant Sol Sidibe receiving cards for a foul and time-wasting respectively.
Back underway in ST4, and the visitors managed to find a few opportunities that they could build on with Hoever clearing an effort off the line before Travers denied Pieters' long range effort.
The West Bromwich Albion boss was clearly encouraged by his side's start to the second half and decided to switch things up by introducing both Brandon Thomas-Asante & Okay Yoksulu who replaced Malcolm & Nathaniel Chalobah. It was not long until one of these introductions made a flying impact.
Brandon Thomas-Asante managed to bring The Baggies level, just 7 minutes after his introduction and 3 minutes after The Potters made a triple substitution, with Dwight Gayle, Daniel Johnson & Andre Vidigal replacing Wesley, Chiquinho & Ryan Mmaee.
If you think 7 minutes is an impressive impact, well how about 43 seconds...that's right! Just 43 seconds after the restart, The Potters were back in front, courtesy of a well taken goal from Andre Vidigal.
Fellow substitute, Dwight Gayle won the ball high into the West Brom half who then managed to play a sweet ball through to Andre Vidigal who made no mistake to score his 3rd goal in all competitions. This was enough to see The Potters progess.
In the final stages, The Potters maintained control and nullified any West Brom threat whilst Josh Laurent, Dwight Gayle & Andre Vidigal all went close with further opportunities.
The Potters progress to Round Two and Alex Neil praised the character of his team.
Watch the post match interview in full below:
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