Manchester United 2 - 0 Stoke City: United get out of a spot of injury bother with penalties

Without 11 senior players though injury, including both his goalkeepers, Sir Alex Ferguson gave Premier League debuts to Ben Amos and substitute Paul Pogba.

However, they were never seriously threatened by a subdued Stoke outfit, who failed to respond after they were punished for fouls on Park Ji-sung and Antonio Valencia.

Twenty-one-year-old goalkeeper Amos was handed his debut as both Anders Lindegaard and David de Gea were ruled out.

It had been reported that Lindegaard suffered an ankle injury in training yesterday, while De Gea was forced to return home after complaining of feeling ill.

Amos’ first touch was a routine back pass as United made the initial running.

He had to watch closely to ensure Jon Walters’ long-range effort bounced wide before Michael Carrick had a shot charged down at the other end.

It was turning into an open contest and after Chris Smalling had gifted possession to Kenwyne Jones, the Stoke forward got himself to the edge of the United box where he thrashed Rio Ferdinand’s half-clearance wide.

In-form Valencia was again looking like United’s most likely method of breaking through Stoke’s formidable defences.

It was Jonny Evans who tried to send Hernandez through, the Mexican falling foul of a marginal offside decision.

Carrick had a long-range effort deflected wide by Wilson Palacios, then a far more dangerous strike from Paul Scholes fizzed inches wide off Crouch with Thomas Sorensen stranded.

Marc Wilson got to Park’s low cross just before Hernandez, then Robert Huth stepped in to clear just as Dimitar Berbatov was about to take aim.

Patrice Evra went down in the box but referee Mike Jones was unimpressed.

United’s stand-in skipper then curled a low cross into the side-netting when he was trying to pick out Hernandez.

Valencia strode on to a superb reverse pass from Berbatov but Sorensen was able to push the cross away.

Stoke’s attacks were becoming increasingly rare and Jones did not help much when they did press forward, screwing a 20-yard shot badly wide.

United’s most fluent passing move was started and ended by Carrick, who laid a pass off to Park before continuing his run to end up on the end of Berbatov’s neat lay-off but his effort rolled narrowly wide of the far post.

United finally broke through when Berbatov and Scholes combined to release Park inside the area.

The Stoke players were convinced Jermaine Pennant took the ball when he lunged in but replays showed Jones got the call spot-on when he awarded a spot-kick and Hernandez sent Sorensen the wrong way.

At the start of the second half, Huth booted a Valencia cross away from danger at the other end, then Berbatov failed to take advantage of some brave tackling from Smalling inside the Stoke box.

It was not long before the Bulgarian had the chance to make amends though as Walters hauled Valencia back inside the visitors’ box.

Despite Hernandez’s previous effort, this time Berbatov assumed the responsibility and beat Sorensen with a shot to the bottom corner as the keeper went the right way.

Berbatov did impede Hernandez a minute later as the Mexican tried to profit from more good work by Valencia.

Cameron Jerome replaced Crouch not long afterwards as Tony Pulis tried to inject some life into his team.

It was almost an hour before Stoke won their first corner, which ended in disappointing fashion as Wilson crashed his shot into a crowd of defenders.

Stoke kept coming forward though and Amos needed two attempts to collect Jerome’s downward header.

Huth was booked for sending Evra flying, then Valencia set up Berbatov in injury time, only for the striker to prod wide.