City's second eleven slipped to a disappointing 4-1 defeat at the Bescot Stadium on Tuesday afternoon.

Marc Grocott's goal towards the end of the match proved nothing more than a solitary consolation for the Potters as the hosts comfortably brushed aside an extremely young City side.

Mark O'Connor's side started slowly but soon settled down with Christian Tudor and Grocott testing the keepers with long range efforts.

However, Walsall soon got into the swing of things and took the lead in the 34th minute through the impressive Troy Deeney.

A short corner was exquisitely crossed into the box and the highly rated youngster made no mistake in heading the ball home from close range.

City keeper Steve Ryan pulled off a number of superb saves towards the end of the first half to deny the Saddlers anything more than a one-nil lead into the interval.

However he was helpless when Deeney bagged his second of the game to doubled the Saddlers advantage ten minutes after the restart.

Disaster struck for the Potters just after the hour though when a cross coming into the box from the right hand side was deflected into his own goal at the near post by James Curley.

City struck back in the 77^th minute when Tom Thorley picked out Grocott who powerfully raced clear to fire the ball into the back of the net.

The second half goal frenzy continued with Mark Bradley compiling the misery on the City side scoring his side's fourth goal of the afternoon with just five minutes to go.

The final stages of the game was fast and furious and either side could have increased their tally.

WALSALL 4 (Deeney 33, 55, Curley 62 og, Bradley 84)

STOKE CITY 1 (Grocott 77)

WALSALL: McKeown, Doran, Quarless, Bradley, Smith, Lyall (Taundry 70), Hanna (R. Davis 77), Harris, Deeney, C. Davies, Demontagnac. Subs: T. Schwarz, D. Schwarz, Skeldon.

CITY: Ryan, Curley (St. Louis-Hamilton 88), Watson, Robinson, Doyle, Keys, Phillips, Thorley, Tudor, Grocott, McGaw (Brunt 69).