| Stoke | 1-2 | West Brom |
| (0-1) | ||
| Jerome 86 | Morrison 35 | |
| Dorrans 90+1 | ||
Stoke City fell to a 2-1 home defeat in their Barclays Premier League 2011/12 clash with West Brom at the Britannia Stadium after the Baggies produced an injury time winner through Dorrans.
Stoke looked to have done enough to earn a point, despite trailing for almost an hour to a 35th minute James Morrison strike, when Cameron Jerome grabbed an 86th minute equaliser, however, home hopes were dashed when Graham Dorrans struck with a last-gasp free kick to take all three points back to the West Midlands for the Baggies on a day Stoke goalkeeper Thomas Sorenson will not want to remember.
Sorenson had been the culprit behind the opening goal, when he failed to deal with a benign enough looking shot which somehow crept into the net, giving the hosts a half time deficit of 1-0. Later, though, the Danish stopper would have his miserable day sealed when, with his side having looked to be back in the match and on course for a decent, battling, point, he failed to judge the flight on a looping free kick and was motionless as the ball flew into the net on 90+1 minutes.
But results are never purely down to a goalkeeping error – or even two – and Stoke had done little to show that they truly merited anything from this match which saw them hit the target a measly three times to West Brom’s six. A point would have been fair, though, for the Potters had retained the lion’s share of possession even if their usual penetrative football from set-pieces seemed to be absent against Roy Hodgson’s customarily well prepared West Brom.
The Baggies are quickly developing into one of the stingiest defences in the bottom half of the league, as they showed again today, in restricting Stoke to just half a handful of chances. Their three points sees them climb to 15th in the table, a relatively comfortable seven points from the drop.
Stoke remain in eighth place, but are just one point above the impressive Norwich, and three points above the recently resurgent Sunderland and Aston Villa: they’ll need to improve some to remain top half.