Potters Through To Carling 4th Round After Penalty Shoot Out!

Stoke City FC 2 Reading 2

For this match Tony Pulis rested key players/survivors from Saturday's exhausting epic against Liverpool.That said Higginbotham, Lawrence, and Sidibe were in the starting lineup in front of 9,141 fans.

Stoke took the lead in the 10th minute when Vincent Pericard easily headed in from a Glen Whelan corner.The Potter's had the best of it territorially through the first half,but just on halftime Higginbotham's attentions caused Bikey to fall inside the box,with Henry netting the Royal's equaliser from the penalty spot.

On 50 minutes Carl Dickinson's corner from the left was fired in (Whelan I think) on goal.An attempted Reading clearance found its way to Mama Sidibe.His scorching left foot shot from six yards out,right of goal,arrowed into the top left corner of the visitors net.The man is becoming prolific (watch out Chelsea!).Reading equalised in the 75th minute,again through teenager Henry (who looks to be a serious talent on the way up),his shot beating Steve Simonsen from 25 yards out,entering the top left corner of the net.

Extra time was pretty even with both sides having chances to win,but not converting.In the resulting penalty shoot out The Potters triumphed 4-3 (Stoke scorers Fuller,Lawrence,Whelan, and Pericard) to go through to the 4th round for the first time since 2000-2001 season.