Death, taxes and Peter Crouch: 3 takeaways from Stoke-Leicester

Stoke and Leicester drew 2-2 at the bet365 Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 4. Here’s what we learned from the Premier League match.

Stoke came from behind twice to earn an entertaining 2-2 draw with Leicester at the bet365 Stadium on Saturday. Peter Crouch was the hero for the home side, heading in Xherdan Shaqiri’s corner in the 73rd minute to level the score in a match both sides had plenty of chances to win.

Peter Crouch does it again

Stoke have been wildly inconsistent under Mark Hughes over the past four-plus years. This season has been no different — the Potters have excelled against Manchester United, Arsenal, Watford and Southampton, while losing to the likes of Bournemouth and Newcastle. In some ways, their performance against the Foxes was Hughes’ Stoke in microcosm, direct and powerful and decisive going forward, complacent and often downright stupid at the back.

If there’s one constant in all this it’s that when all else fails, Peter Crouch will be there to pick up the pieces. The Englishman came off the bench for his seventh league appearance of the season on Saturday, at which point Stoke’s relatively new-found counter-attacking identity went out the window for a more familiar route-one approach.

It’s testament to the 36-year-old’s enduring quality that this is still a viable tactic, and it felt almost inevitable when he scored Stoke’s equalizer, an excellent flicked header that beat Kasper Schmeichel at his near post, and his third goal of the season. That’s an excellent return for a man who has reinvented himself as one of the league’s best impact subs.