This proved the perfect fixture for Stoke City to finally get their season underway in earnest. Having failed to score before the interval in their previous seven league outings, Joe Allen twice found the target during the first period, as Mark Hughes's team shook off their early season inertia against a poor Sunderland.
With their first clean sheet in 17 fixtures dating back to March, the only blot on Stoke's copybook was that the margin of victory was not more comprehensive. After a rejuvenating draw at Old Trafford, Hughes felt that this result "had been coming" and it was heavily influenced by his decision to deploy Joe Allen in an advanced midfield position. Playing a supporting role to Wilfried Bony, the Welsh international excelled with his intelligent movement placing him in the positions to score his fourth and then fifth goal in four games for club and country.
"We pushed him further forward just because sometimes when you get the opportunity to work with players' day in day out you see things that you didn't realise that they may have the capability of," Hughes said. "His anticipation of where the ball is going to land was evident for everyone to see. In midfield or out wide, or wherever the ball was dropping, he anticipates well."
There was a touch of good fortune to aid their opening goal, ensuring a "nightmare start" for David Moyes's confidence-shorn team. Sunderland's Didier N'Dong saw his pass blocked by referee Mike Jones but, though the ball was returned to him, the Gabonese midfielder then telegraphed a second pass that was short of pace towards Shaqiri. The Swiss international and Marko Anautovic capitalised and Allen emphatically headed the opening goal past Jordan Pickford.
His second, which came in added time at end of the first half, effectively killed off the game. "We conceded two terrible goals," Moyes said.
"I'd like to say the referee was partly at fault for the first one but after seeing it again we had two opportunities (to clear). It was our own doing and then we conceded a goal from a set-piece, where we lose the first header and aren't particularly well organised at the edge of the box and it goes through sets of legs and we don't kick it off the line."
To come away with nothing from a fixture that they could ill afford to lose served only to increase the pressure on Sunderland and Moyes, who already look to be facing a gargantuan task to keep pace with their rivals at the bottom of the table. "We're looking for a win to give us a lift and a bit of momentum, something we can start from," he Moyes.