Mark Hughes has made his side difficult to beat
After conceding eight goals over two fixtures against Liverpool and Chelsea in the last month, Stoke City fans can be forgiven for thinking that there may have been another bloodbath when United came to town.
However, it was a completely different story, and Stoke showed commendable grit and desire to keep a rampant United side at bay.
Stoke only had 35% of possession against Manchester United on Saturday, but unlike in previous encounters against top-six sides (where they had similar periods of time without the ball) they remained resolute in defence; it took a world-class strike to finally break their resistance down, and there’s no disgrace in that.
Bruno Martins Indi led by example at the back and was integral to Stoke’s defensive discipline, getting himself into a brutal battle with Zlatan Ibrahimovic for 90 minutes which he dealt with extremely well.
United will see it as points dropped, but Mark Hughes will certainly see it as a deserved point after all of their defensive efforts.
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