Mark Noble helps give West Ham a lift as Stoke and Mark Hughes suffer

Marko Arnautovic loped from the pitch with a flea in his ear from Mark Hughes and a piece of Stoke City clothing, hurled from the stands, in his hand. The latter was quickly discarded; Hughes must now be close to a similar fate after his former charge heaped on the embarrassment in a match delayed by an hour due to a power failure. There could be no better metaphor for Stoke’s performance; they will rightly dispute the penalty, dispatched by Mark Noble, that started the rout but offered no coherent threat of their own and departed looking shell-shocked.

For almost 18 minutes the only incident worthy of comment had been the glare Arnautovic, abused roundly by his former public, offered Pablo Zabaleta after the wing-back had misread his intention to receive a short pass. Nearly everyone on the pitch will have known that look of scorn; it had nothing, though, on the anger that greeted Graham Scott’s decision to award the spot-kick shortly afterwards.

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