Stoke Bounce Back to Winning Form with 3-1 Victory Over Watford

Million Manhoef scored two goals as Stoke ended their three-match winless streak with a 3-1 win over Watford. The Dutch winger found the net on either side of halftime before Sam Gallagher added a third goal late in the game, just after Nestory Irankunda's impressive strike had pulled one back for Watford. This result moves Stoke up to 13th place with only their second win in their last 12 league matches. Meanwhile, Watford drops one place to 10th, eight points behind Wrexham in the fourth and final playoff spot. Stoke looked more lively in the early stages and showed their intent through Bae Jun-ho, whose goal-bound effort was blocked. Watford gradually grew into the game and created a couple of good chances within six minutes for Tom Ince, who had an attempt blocked by Eric Bocat before shooting straight at Tommy Simkin. The hosts continued to pose a threat as Steven Nzonzi headed straight at Egil Selvik from Sorba Thomas' corner. Down at the other end, Imran Louza dragged a shot wide from James Abankwah's pull-back in the 21st minute as the best opportunity of the game up until that point went begging. Moments later, Selvik produced an excellent save to keep out Tomas Rigo's header from Manhoef's neat cross. But the goalkeeper could do nothing about Manhoef's strike shortly before the half-hour mark as the Dutchman curled home with his favored left foot after controlling compatriot Milan Smit's pass across the box with his right. The Potters nearly doubled their advantage just before halftime, only for Maksym Talovierov to direct the ball wide from Thomas' delivery. Watford came close to equalizing early in the second half, but Stephen Mfuni glanced a header wide from Giorgi Chakvetadze's corner. There was no further goalmouth action of note until the 74th minute, when Selvik comfortably saved substitute Gallagher's header from Thomas' cross. But it was not long before Manhoef bagged his second goal, forcing a good save out of Selvik with his left foot before lashing the rebound into the back of the net with a half-volley on his right. The visitors halved the deficit with nine minutes of normal time remaining as substitute Irankunda's ferocious effort from just outside the box flew into the top corner. Any hopes of a comeback were soon put to bed, though, as Gallagher curled a right-footed effort into the top corner to secure all three points for Mark Robins' Stoke side. Defeat for Watford marks the second in six games for new manager Ed Still, who was named as Javi Gracia's successor in February. 'I thought that's one of his best performances, he was really good. And I was umming and ahing about that (the set up of the side) and, when I was picking the team, I was trying to do things, but settled on that. But Million was never in doubt playing and I think he's done exceptionally well today with those two goals. The goals are really important, aren't they. We haven't done that enough and I would much prefer this, rather than just go 'right it's 0-0' - nobody wants that. Can we get the balance between the two? The quality of the goals was outstanding and that should give us the confidence to keep doing it.' 'Gutted because it's a little bit of the same feeling as there was after the Sheffield Wednesday game earlier this week, where we've started the game and had at least three huge opportunities there, coming in the zones where we wanted to be. [We] pulled the ball back to the zones we wanted to bring it back to and then you need to, at this level or any level, be taking those chances to be one or two ahead and then the dynamic of the game changes completely. You put the opposition on the back foot, you're able to set up and manage the game completely differently. So that's one side of it and then also we've come out early in the second half and had another couple of really, really good chances - not just situations, but actual real chances which we haven't taken.' The £250,000 is up for grabs with Super 6, and as always it is completely free to play. Entries by 3 pm Saturday.