Hugs all around..
The home side cruised to a victory of consummate ease with four clinical finishes from Fernando Torres and Glen Johnson in the first half, and Dirk Kuyt and David N’gog in the second as Stoke were thoroughly outclassed.
The match was just four minutes old when Steven Gerrard’s foraging run down the right took him into the Stoke penalty area and his pass bobbled into the path of Torres who swept the ball high into Thomas Sorensen’s net.
The pressure exerted by the hosts was incessant and it was one wave too many for Stoke to repel as Johnson opened his Liverpool account with a close-range finish after Kuyt had his header parried away sharply by Sorensen.
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