Stoke City came from a goal behind to beat Aston Villa 4-1 in an English Premier League match at Villa Park on Sunday.
It was an entertaining opening 45 minutes that produced plenty of goal mouth action, lots of talking points and most importantly four goals.
Villa started the better of the two teams and opened the scoring in the fifth minute when Christian Benteke turned home a low cross from Fabian Delph, firing the ball into the roof of the net from 12-yards out, 1-0.
Benteke almost found his second goal ten minutes later when his shot from 20-yards skimmed the top of the crossbar.
Villa were dominating the early exchanges, but finally, in the 20th minute, Stoke found a foothold in the game when Peter Odemwingie equalized after holding off one defender before producing a clinical finish, 1-1.
Five minutes later Stoke took the lead when Odemwingie turned provider after playing Peter Crouch into space and he expertly side-footed the ball home, 2-1.
In the 31st minute Villa suffered a massive set-back as both Andy Weimann and Karim El Ahmadi had to leave the field injured and were replaced by Yacouba Sylla and Marc Albrighton.
This disrupted Villa’s play and Stoke took full advantage with their third goal in 40th minute when Steven Nzonzi slotted home from 20-yards out, 3-1.
The second half saw Stoke continue to dominate matters and only a brilliant save from Brad Guzan denied Odemwingie a second goal in the 61st minute.
Villa, though, began controlling the last 20 minutes of the game, but for all their possession they could not find another goal.
Instead it was Stoke that found the next goal in the 90th minute courtesy of Geoff Cameron, 4-1.
