Arsenal woke up after their slow start and came within inches of levelling the score on ten minutes, but Olivier Giroud somehow headed wide after Hector Bellerin did well to keep the ball in and cross it.
Both teams were going for it and having shots at either end, with Emiliano Martinez struggling to deal with a Phil Bardsley strike moments before Santi Cazorla blazed over Asmir Begovic’s goal.
Former Barcelona starlet Bojan doubled Stoke’s lead, sublimely converting a looping Jonathan Walters cross from close range, with ten minutes to go before half-time.
They continued to look dangerous and Arsenal struggled to get back into, with the creator of the second goal scoring the third in added time at the end of the first half. The ball was knocked down by Crouch to Walters after the Gunners failed to deal with a corner and he hammered it into the roof of the net from close range.
Stoke took their lead into the break, forcing Arsenal to bring Danny Welbeck on for Bellerin after the restart. Immediately the 23-year-old looked lively and won the visitors a corner, but it came to nothing.
It was a frustrating afternoon for Alexis Sanchez and he decided to take the game into his own hands with a superb run into Stoke’s box, he partially-rounded Begovic and shot, but it crashed back off the post.
Bojan went on a superb run in the 65th minute, beating several players and crashing a low drive beyond Martinez, as Stoke looked to go 4-0 up. But the goal was quickly scrubbed out as Mame Biram Diouf was ruled offside and interfering with the Arsenal goalkeeper’s line of sight, so the home side stayed just three up.
Diouf’s afternoon got even worse just after, tripping Mathieu Flamini just inside the box and gifting Arsenal a penalty. Cazorla converted the spot-kick, bagging his first Premier League goal since January.
The Gunners clawed back a second goal soon after, when Aaron Ramsey was left unmarked at a corner and drilled the ball low and hard through a crowd of players on 70 minutes.
Arsenal’s hopes of a comeback dwindled seven minutes later when Calum Chambers received a soft second yellow card for foolishly pulling on Bojan, as the Stoke forward looked to surge forward.
Despite being down to ten men, the Gunners continued to press for an equaliser and brought on Joel Campbell late on, but he was unable to change the game and it finished 3-2 to Stoke.
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