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Stoke showed their home crowd exactly where theyre heading this season by putting on a decent perfomance and scoring opportunities. Ironic perhaps, that when we had Thorne we struggled to put chances away - now he's gone, so far, we're having no trouble.
Hoekstra was out, replaced by Thordarson, after injuring himself in the warm up. Thordarson set out to prove how good he really was - and did.
Cutler replaced Ward for the 2nd time and kept a 2nd clean sheet and again played well with some great saves near the end especially.
Bjarni Gudjonsson missed a penalty in the 16th minute which could have cost the potters. Luckily it didnt although Stoke never really took control after itand it wasn't really till the 44th minute that Stoke woke up. Jurgen Van Duerzen headed a cross home from Andy Cooke.
Stoke took control of the majority of the second half, playing some great football, but it was from the defence that our 2nd goal was created. Bjarni Gudjonsson made up for his penalty miss with an outstanding 50 yard "beckham style" delivery which Thordarson ran onto, took it on, and drilled it past the keeper from 18 yards to the delight of the Stoke crowd.
Colchester missed their only real chance near the end when Cutler made two outstanding saves straight after eachother as Colchester tryed to grab something. Stoke used Colchesters attempted attacking and caught them off-guard with numerous breaks which could have seen Stoke hit a third.
A goal was on its way and it finally came when Stoke put in their 3rd as the ball was neatly played around followed by Thordarson's own bit of skills and he found a way through to a tight angle from the left of the 6-yard box. He drilled the ball into the bottom right hand corner and sealed the points completely for the potters.
