Stoke City 3-0 Plymouth Argyle: Potters move six points clear of relegation zone
Stoke City all but secured their Championship safety with a comfortable win against Plymouth Argyle, who remain in a relegation battle.
Ki-Jana Hoever and Million Manhoef's first-half strikes were followed by a late goal from Wouter Burger as the Potters put six points between themselves and the drop zone with two matches left to play.
Argyle, who were helped by Huddersfield losing heavily against Swansea, are four points above the bottom three with games against Millwall and Hull remaining.
Stoke went into the game knowing that their far superior goal difference over Huddersfield and Sheffield Wednesday meant victory would go a long way to keeping them in the division.
The hosts started the game on the front foot with an effort from Luke Cundle which went narrowly over, before Josh Laurent tried one from the edge of the box that Dan Scarr blocked well.
The Pilgrims were then forced into an early change as midfielder Adam Forshaw went down injured and had to be replaced by Jordan Houghton with less than 10 minutes on the clock.
Hoever came closest to opening the scoring as Plymouth gave away the ball, allowing the Wolves loanee to advance into the area and his powerful strike cannoned off the crossbar.
Frustrations boiled over before the break in such a high-stakes game as Tyrese Campbell, Hoever, Bali Mumba and Michael Cooper were all cautioned following an altercation.
The Potters then broke the deadlock late in the first half as Laurent threaded a pass through to Hoever, who slid beyond Cooper to give City the lead with his fourth goal of the season.
It got even better for the hosts in first-half stoppage time as they doubled their lead through winger Manhoef. The Dutchman shifted the ball on to his left foot on the edge of the area and fired beyond the reach of Cooper.
Plymouth made two changes at half-time, taking off Joe Edwards and Julio Pleguezuelo for Lewis Gibson and Alfie Devine, but they were still unable to create enough clear-cut chances.
Stoke brought on substitute Niall Ennis who made a positive impact straight away after his introduction, shooting from an acute angle but inches wide of the far post.
Ennis continued to cause trouble for the Argyle defence late on, forcing Cooper into a double save as he also thwarted Mehdi Leris follow up.
The hosts then finished in style as Burger fired home from 12 yards after a cut-back from the right-hand side.
Stoke boss Steven Schumacher told BBC Radio Stoke:
"It was a really good performance, we expected it to be a hard game but we were excellent.
"We were aggressive and won a lot of duels, in the key moments we showed composure too.
"It's a good day, the goals before half-time were crucial, we were brilliant and the scoreline was a fair reflection."
