Potters blunt Blades with superb first-half blitz at Bramall Lane...

STOKE City head to Sheffield United at the weekend - and it's a while since they tasted victory at Bramall Lane.

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But when they did, it was on the way to a memorable time... promotion to the Premier League. It was December 4, 2007 when Stoke, who had been beaten at home by the Blades just weeks before, exacted revenge in stunning style...

THE Championship has produced some weird and wonderful scorelines already this season, but nothing so eye-catching as last night's offering of Sheffield United 0, Wimbledon 3.

Bryan Robson delivered his pre-match talk of the season - for Stoke City - when likening them to the old and much maligned Wimbledon after his side's narrow win at the Britannia last month.

Whether he meant any insult or not, offence was clearly taken and now, too, sweet revenge has also been exacted thanks to last night's early mauling.

For 18 glorious minutes Sheffield's defence was every bit as flimsy as it had been solid three-and-a-half weeks earlier at the Britannia.

Had the centre of their defence mirrored their visiting counterparts, they would certainly have avoided the calamitous opening with which Stoke effectively wrapped up their handsome victory before anyone had really broken sweat.

Robson trudged helplessly around his technical area powerless to prevent an astonishing capitulation unbecoming of a team garnished with riches undreamt of by most other Championship rivals.

If United had turned a corner after four wins in their previous five, it soon became a blind bend around which Stoke's hungry and affronted juggernaut was now approaching at high speed. Stoke fans, dancing deliriously behind the goal pierced three times in that opening 18 minutes, were cheekily chanting "We want four" - and doing so more in expectation than hope.