Stoke City 4 - 0 Rochdale

Photo: Brad Journeaux

Stoke City v Rochdale

Rochdale went out of the EFL Cup at the second round stage after being comfortably beaten by Premier League side Stoke City.

Stoke raced into a 3-0 half time lead as they punished Dale with three quick breakaway goals from Joe Allen (2) and Peter Crouch. Ramadan finished the scoring with ten minutes remaining.

Having beaten Mansfied in the first round, Dale were handed a very difficult trip to Premier League outfit Stoke City who, despite making seven changes from the side that beat Arsenal at the weekend, still had plenty of experience with players such as Peter Crouch, Joe Allen, Bojan and Charlie Adam in their starting lineup.

The quality of the opposition was clear from the outset as Stoke played their way through the Dale defence with only Dale keeper Brendan Moore keeping the game goalless.

The deadlock was broken in the 16th minute when a swift move saw Erik Pieters break down the right before crossing for Allen to stoop to head home via a deflection off McGahey.

The lead was soon doubled through former England international Crouch. Stoke carved the Rochdale defence open and when Allen found space inside the area, he unselfishly picked out Crouch for a simple tap in.

Two became three just before half time when Pieters broke down the right and provided the ball for Allen to score his second of the game from close range.

Dale manager Keith Hill brought on Steven Davies at half time in place of Keith Keane to try and add a more attacking threat but little stemmed the flow and the game didn’t really change with Stoke going close on a number of occasions.

Central defender Bruno Martins Indi pushed forward from the back and having jinked his way into a shooting position, he fired narrowly wide.

Young wingback Josh Tymons was picked out by a sublime pass from Adam that split the Dale defence and when Tymons saw Moore off his line he clipped a shot over the Dale keeper but the ball hit the top of the crossbar.

Dale's first real attempt came late on when Andy Cannon warmed the hands of Lee Grant but the Stoke keeper saved comfortably.

When a threatening Dale breakaway move broke down, the ball was soon in the back of the Dale net for Stoke's fourth goal of the game. Henderson was dispossessed and the ball fed to Ramadan who rounded Moore to slot in from the narrowest of angles.

It was a tough test for Rochdale, who will have learnt a lot from the experience but with the derby against Bury coming up at the Crown Oil Arena on Saturday, the players must shift their attention to the league once more.

Stoke City: Grant, Pieters (Verlinden70), Zouma (Souttar 60), Martins Indi, Wollscheid, Tymon, Allen © (Fletcher 46), Adam, Bojan, Ramadan, Crouch.
Subs: (not used) Butland, Berahino, Choupo-Moting, Jese.

Rochdale: Moore, Rafferty, McGahey, Canavan, Nthle, Keane (Davies 46), Cannon, Inman (Williams 53), Kitching, Done (Gillam 81), Henderson ©.
Subs: (not used) Collis, Brown, Adshead, Morley.

Referee: Mr S Duncan.
Assistants: Mr P Dermott and Mr D Robathan.
Fourth Official: Mr D Handley.

Attendance: 9,930.