Manchester United 3-0 Stoke City: 5 Talking Points

#4 Peter Crouch's unique skill-set needs to be utilised by Paul Lambert

Peter Crouch is as difficult to defend as ever - as Chris Smalling found out the hard way

Stoke City are still rooted in the relegation zone, 20 points in 23 games, and the incoming manager - Paul Lambert, who saw the game from the stands at Old Trafford - has his task cut out.

While there are plenty of negatives to focus on, the Potters will, though, take encouragement from the way they were able to create chance after chance in the first half (although their finishing was lamentable), the powerful running and smart play of debutant Moritz Bauer, the return of Stephen Ireland (who's off-the-ball runs are as clever as ever) and the sporadic magic of Xherdan Shaqiri.

Most of all, though, Lambert is likely to draw optimism from the fact that even at the ripe old age of 36, Peter Crouch is as un-defendable as ever. If he can get a consistent, injury-free run out of the veteran Englishman, and if he can drill his team into a system that utilises Crouch's obvious strengths, he - and Stoke - should still be in the Premier League come 2018-19. But he doesn't have much time:

Their next four fixtures are - Huddersfield (H), Watford (H), Bournemouth (A) and Brighton (H) - if they can't gain points here...