United wear down grim Stoke to go top

Ryan Giggs inspired Manchester United as the Premier League champions secured a 2-0 victory over Stoke at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday and moved to the top of the table for the first time this season.

Giggs will reach his 36th birthday in November, but the Welsh midfielder’s desire to add to his collection of 11 Premier League winners medals shows no signs of abating and, even as a substitute, he showed he can have a devastating effect after Stoke had frustrated Sir Alex Ferguson’s team for over an hour.

Giggs was instrumental in setting up the goal for Dimitar Berbatov as the Bulgarian international broke the deadlock in the 62 minute, just six minutes after Ferguson had run out of patience with Nani and sent on Giggs as his replacement in a bid to win their fifth successive Premier League game.

He also played a part in making sure of victory 13 minutes from time with the perfectly flighted free kick that enabled John O’Shea to send a glancing header beyond Thomas Sorensen to ruin Stoke manager Tony Pulis’ 150th game in charge in his second spell.

It also proved the perfect workout ahead of United’s Champions League encounter with German champions Wolfsburg on Wednesday as Ferguson rotated his squad.

Few teams have the luxury of making 11 changes to their line-up twice in the space of a week.

Such is the power of United’s squad and Stoke’s only plan to attempt to stop it in its tracks was to set up a road block of ten players behind the ball.

Despite the tactics of frustration, United should have been well ahead by half-time.

It was only their lack of composure in front of Sorensen that prevented it and the biggest culprit was Antonio Valencia, who continues to struggle to justify the 16 million pounds price Ferguson paid to lure him from Wigan as a replacement for Cristiano Ronaldo.

Valencia is still searching for his first goal for his new club and will get few better opportunities than the one when he beat Ryan Shawcross and raced clear with only Sorensen to defeat, but he clipped his shot over the Danish international and wide of the far post.

Nani, the man Ronaldo believes can fill the void he has left at Old Trafford, fared little better.

He infuriated Wayne Rooney by not passing to him on the edge of the area, after the England international had sparked a quick counter-attack from inside his own half, but did force a full length save from Sorensen two minutes before the break.

Giggs finally broke the deadlock when he was given a wonderful pass by Darren Fletcher in the 62nd minute.

Where Nani had so often failed to provide the correct final ball, Giggs simply rolled the coolest of passes into the path of Berbatov, who could not miss from three yards out.

That was the signal for Stoke to crumble and United completed their success 13 minutes from time.

Once more Giggs was involved and delivered the perfect free-kick for O’Shea to collect his first Premier League goal for 17 months.