Hughes Hails Osaze

Mark Hughes praised his winter transfer catch Peter Osaze Odemwingie  following his impressive display in Stoke's character-building 2-2 draw at Southampton.

Odemwingie opened his account for Stoke in his third game for the club by streaking onto Charlie Adam’s expert through ball to level the game at 1-1 in the first half.

And that left Hughes purring: “I was pleased with his impact, but that comes from an understanding of the League and being an accomplished Premier League player.

“I knew what I was getting and that’s why he’s hit the ground running.”

And of Stoke’s first goal, he added: “He (Adam) has got that, we all know that, and what we have now is Peter Odemwingie whose an experienced Premier League player and hopefully we can exploit that part of the game with pace in between centre backs and full backs.

“And Charlie’s game has a range of passing which will always hit good movement.”

Stoke, emulating Arsenal’s 2-2 draw in the previous fixture at St Mary’s, bounced back from Rickie Lambert’s early free-kick during a sequence of three goals in five minutes towards the end of the first period.

Odemwingie latched onto Adam’s superb pass for 1-1 before a Steven Davis cross deceived everyone to find the far corner to restore the home side’s lead.

But Stoke were level before the break when Adam’s right-wing corner was flapped at by the keeper for Peter Crouch to claim the final touch from close range for his seventh of the season.

“I thought it was an important game for us,” said Hughes, “because obviously we had a fantastic result last weekend against Manchester United and it would have been a real disappointment if we had come into this game and not got something out of it.

Meanwhile Odemwingie has said Stoke deserved the point they got at Southampton.
"We deserved a point in the game because we showed great organisation and we defended well," he said.

The former West Brom striker, who made a winter switch from Cardiff City to Stoke, was delighted to get his first goal for his new club.

"Very happy to get my first goal for the club. Good team performance. Big thanks to our fans for the support in this tough weather," he tweeted.