Southampton 0-1 Stoke City: Butland Heroics Enough to Earn Potters Victory in Entertaining Clash

A Peter Crouch header and a Man of the Match performance from Jack Butland proved enough to earn Stoke City victory over Southampton on the final day of the Premier League season. In an entertaining encounter, both sides were unfortunate not score more in a game that provided numerous chances.

The win for Stoke was Mark Hughes’ 150th as a Premier league boss, putting him in an elite club alongside only six other managers to achieve the feat. Southampton’s failure to score meant the Saints have now gone five top-flight matches without a goal – the longest in their history.

With both teams sitting comfortably in the table prior to kick-off, the match began at an explosive pace considering the relevance of the tie – Southampton’s Fraser Forster was called in to action early on in the Southampton goal and had to pull off a smart stop at his near post to deny Mame Biram Diouf.

However, it was the Saints that dominated the opening stages of the game as Mark Hughes’ choice to implement a back three in defence seemed questionable with the Potters looking stretched against the pace of Nathan Redmond.

Against the run of play, Xherdan Shaqiri had a fantastic opportunity to put the visitors in front after being played through by Joe Allen. But the Swiss international’s touch let him down at the the vital moment as he would have been clean through on goal if he had gotten the ball under control.

The match turned in to an end-to-end encounter with both sides creating a number of opportunities. The first-half drew to a close in a frantic fashion after the Saints were unable to defend a corner effectively and Diouf saw his header cleared off the line. 

Only moments later a goalkeeping error from Stoke’s Jack Butland nearly proved costly – the England international was left stranded way outside his box resulting in Redmond’s audacious 30-year lob clipping the top of the Stoke crossbar.

The Saints had the ball in the back of the net after the restart but Charlie Austin was judged to be offside after being threaded through by Dusan Tadic.

It was the Potters who took the lead on the hour mark with a vintage header from Crouch – Geoff Cameron ran the ball down the right-flank and stood the ball up to the back-post, leaving Crouch able to nod home and grab his seventh Premier League goal of the season.

Southampton were denied an equaliser by the heroics of Butland in the Stoke goal – a superb initial save to stop Steven Davis was shortly followed up by denying James Ward-Porwse’s powerful strike.

Butland’s outstanding display was proving to be the difference between the two sides as the Stoke keeper came to the rescue yet again – firstly by preventing Manolo Gabbiadini from scoring in a one-on-one position and then by stopping Sofiane Boufal with an outstretched leg. 

It was a nervy-ending to the game for the Potters as the home side piled on the pressure in the latter stages – Davis was presented with the chance to get the equaliser from a free-kick in a good position but his effort was ultimately wasted after heading straight in to the Stoke wall.

The full-time whistle was met by a chorus of boos from around St Mary’s with the fans demonstrating their public disapproval of Southampton manager Claude Puel.

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