Blues Match Zone

Lucky Stoke Knock Out Blues

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Stoke City moved into the quarter final of the Capital One cup at the expense of Birmingham last night, but they needed the game to go to penalties to do it.

The ten men of Birmingham can hold their heads high this morning after fighting back three times to take the game to a penalty shoot out when all the odds were stacked against them.

But a determined Blues side showed time and again just how weak the Premiership side were at the back and managed to embarrass Thomas Sorensen, not for the first time at St Andrews.

The Potters were at one time 3-1 up after a brush on the cheek of Assaidi by Wade Elliott left the Stoke man lying on the floor holding his face as if he had been hit with a lump hammer.

The referee showed Elliott the red card and the Stoke player made a complete, if not miraculous recovery.

At that point the score was 1-1 with Assaidi giving the Potters the lead when after being set up by Muniesa, he fired the ball into the top corner for his first senior goal.

Blues fought back and when Zigic knocked the ball down for Tom Adeyemi, he fired past Sorensen to level the scores.

After the sending off and a half time break, Stoke took advantage of having a man more on the field and Crouch headed a ball back across Doyle and into the net from a Muniesa’s cross.

And then the game looked all over when Arnautovic fired home a superb effort from just inside the area with 19 minutes left.

Stoke had further chances to increase that lead but Lovenkrands grabbed a goal back on 85 minutes. Then Novak forced a save out of Sorensen just a minute later.

But roared on by the City faithful, Lovenkrands levelled things two minutes into injury time after picking up a pass from Gray.

The game went to extra time and just four minutes in Blues suffered another blow when Kenwynne Jones went around Doyle and finished from a tight angle.

But Blues would not lie down and launched everything at Stoke and were rewarded with just two minutes left on the clock through Olly Lee.

Birmingham missed their first two spot kicks, Mitch Hancox and Callum Reilly off target, and though they converted their third and fourth, Stoke scored each of their first three, leaving Steven N`Zonzi to step up and fire home the winner.


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