Bojan celebrated his return to Stoke City’s Premier League starting lineup with a goal after 13 minutes of their match against high-flying Leicester City this afternoon.
The Spaniard, making his first top-flight start in eight months after a serious knee injury, was slipped through beautifully by Marko Arnautovic and tucked the ball under Kasper Schmeichel.
The former Barcelona starlet became a fans’ favourite at the Britannia Stadium last season, scoring five times, including goals in wins over Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, in 20 appearances.
But he suffered cruciate knee ligament damage in January’s FA Cup win over Rochdale and did not feature for the remainder of the 2014-15 season as Stoke record their best ever Premier League finish.
His road to recovery was stepped up in pre-season and with appearances against Luton Town in the Capital One Cup and off the bench against Arsenal last month, prior to today’s Midlands derby.
Things got better for Stoke seven minutes after Bojan’s opener as Jonathan Walters pounced on a poor Wes Morgan back-pass to put the Potters 2-0 ahead and on course to turn the form book on its head.
Mark Hughes’s side are yet to win this season and were 19th in the table prior to kickoff, while Leicester are second only to Manchester City, but now seem likely to lose their unbeaten record.
However, the Foxes did come from two goals down to beat Aston Villa 3-2 at the King Power Stadium last weekend, and have a couple of the country’s in form attackers in Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy.
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