The glamour was at Wembley, the high feeling at St James' Park, but for Manchester United the lonely run to the subject continues. They've been so far ahead for so long that it'd have needed an earthquake instead of mere defeat in last Monday's Manchester derby to unseat them. United require eight points from their ultimate half-dozen fixtures to secure a 20th league title; only the where and when of these coronation must be established and the likeliest time are at Arsenal on 28 April. If you believe Manchester City will lose their next two matches, it may be as early as Sunday night. It took exactly 3 minutes and 14 seconds for the weak issue scars asked by their defeat by City at Old Trafford to melt away. By the finish Robin van Persie, who found the web for initially since February, was speaking of breaking Chelsea's Premier League report of 95 points, reached under Jose Mourinho in 2005. If United's remaining opponents put up the kind of weak resistance Stoke mustered, that history has every chance of falling. United already have more points (80) than when they won the concept in 1997 and as much as four years later when they kept it. Here, Sir Alex Ferguson was relaxed enough to hire Wayne Rooney as a and wave to the bank of followers to his right have been taunting Stoke with the chant of "Who the f***** hell are you?" Once it had been easy enough to learn who Stoke City were. They were the club with a brand of baseball that has been challenging, physical and in its own way as unique as Barcelona's. The Britannia Stadium was one of the most daunting arenas in the country, where few apart from United had were able to chisel out items. While the weekend was performed better than they had against Aston Villa by them before, Stoke are an unrecognisable and fast-disintegrating club nowadays and among the Sunday papers had predicted that had Manchester United "tonked" them here, Tony Pulis will be expected to resign as manager. Stoke weren't tonked but they were comfortably defeated even by the standards of a United area that's now won eight of its 10 fits at the Britannia Stadium. The Stoke chairman, Peter Coates, is constructed of steely stuff but the research turning up against Pulis are damning a' one win in his last 14 games, one clear sheet in the last 15 and two objectives in the last seven. Until these numbers can be made around, Stoke are the best candidates for the third and final relegation position. The panic on the people of those who crowded round the televisions on the stadium concourses as they saw Sunderland's impressive victory in the Tyne-Wear derby revealed that they knew it. The group were loud and raucous, much more extreme than they had been the last Saturday. On 14 minutes they broke in to sustained applause for Kameron Bourne, a 14-year-old Stoke supporter who had died in his sleep through the week. There were isolated, horrible cries of "Munich" aimed at these from more up the M6 but at the ultimate whistle there was no booing. There may have been no minute's silence for Margaret Thatcher but before kick-off Stoke used a of Churchillian rhetoric in the form of the Foo Fighters performing "The Pretender" (critical lyric, "What if I say I will never surrender?") followed by footage of their players scoring the kind of targets that have not been observed at the Britannia this season. Pulis's defenders were not for turning rapidly enough in the field and within four minutes the white flags began fluttering over the Britannia. Nursing what he called "a stinking cold", Pulis recognized that the goals Stoke conceded had been unforgivably lax. The very first, set aside by Michael Carrick, was not likely even a picture. As Phil Jones's drive from Van Persie's corner was plugged, the midfielder did actually direct a move back to the six-yard field towards Javier Hernandez. It missed its target but ended up in the place of Asmir Begovic's internet. Carrick would have been shocked to see Rooney playing along with him and the test worked better than Fabio Capello's quick design of applying David Beckham as a brush. The instincts to select goal which were with him because he was playing on the streets of Croxteth couldn't be entirely abandoned, but Rooney performed well enough to get the man-of-the-match prize. "He was brilliant," said Ferguson. "I was thinking he perhaps expected an alternative position when it comes to finding his confidence right back. He has been under a bit of criticism a nothing considerable, but there were some doubts nevertheless. I thought a spell in midfield may do him the planet of good." Van Persie had lost one chance to break his target famine when operating Hernandez's fantastic diagonal cross punch in to the side-netting. Then midway through the 2nd half Andy Wilkinson unnecessarily brought the Dutchman down. He decided to just take himself to the punishment and so strong was the wind that he had to re-spot it twice before striking a target that introduced a dam-burst of feelings. Van Persie went over to the United coach, Rene Meulensteen, who had been standing in the technical area, before covering Ferguson in a bear hug. "He may have killed me, he forgets I am 71," his director smiled.
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