SOCCER While taking a break from competing for the Premiership title, the three major clubs vied in the FA Cup to see who would be least embarrassed today.

After drawing with Exeter, Manchester United might wish to live under an assumed name for a while and Chelsea could be lying low following the clumsy win over Scunthorpe, but Arsenal are relieved rather than proud of their ostensibly superior victory.

Even if Stoke City, a mid-table Championship team, had more substance than the other contenders from the lower divisions, Arsene Wenger should remain uneasy about this match. Clubs like to have a system into which every player can fit, but the Highbury pattern also retains the same flaw no matter who is picked. Stoke threatened to rend the Highbury fabric as they took the lead.

There is now a patch of north London in which the name of Ade Akinbiyi is no longer the prompt for a gag. In common with so many other players in the past year or two, he showed that the Arsenal defence can be overpowered. When asked whether he feared bids for the forward after this showing, the Stoke manager's answer was true and tactless. "No," said Tony Pulis.

He did not mean to denigrate a striker whom he has also managed at Gillingham and Bristol City, but, at 30, Akinbiyi's reputation is beyond retrieval. The £5 million price Leicester once paid for him and the meagre contribution he was able to provide in return had the public delivering a snap verdict that is not open to review.

That hurts and Akinbiyi has needed years to recover from harrowing days at Filbert Street. "He's a kind and considerate man," said Pulis. "The criticism he had affected him and he's needed to be rebuilt."

The overhauled Akinbiyi can, on the basis of this effort, be formidable.

The limitations are unmistakable and Stoke caution him against dropping back to get involved with the build-up, but his pace and strength were upsetting for Kolo Toure, who also saw Akinbiyi come up with the occasional neat touch. The striked lofted the ball into the net after 38 minutes, but only after the referee Neale Barry had wrongly given a foul for an innocent shoulder charge with Philippe Senderos.

Akinbiyi mostly targeted Toure, who continues to be uncertain in the absence of the injured Sol Campbell. Stoke's Hackney-born attacker was a schoolboy signing at Arsenal but Wenger did not appreciate being introduced to this fan of the Highbury club.

"He and Kolo had 40-yard runs together and he didn't lose many," the manager said. "Kolo tried to fight him but it looks as if he likes to fight."

Even when Arsenal had equalised, Akinbiyi did not languish and came close to reinstating Stoke's lead with a turn and dipping shot against the bar in the 68th minute. Shortly before that Gael Clichy needed to head a Chris Greenacre effort from the goal-line in an incident that, predictably, followed a corner.

Arsenal are still liable to collapse at set-pieces. Having half-cleared a free-kick in the 45th minute they were in no shape to go on covering when Greenacre sustained the pressure with an inswinging cross from the right. Toure was unable to challenge Akinbiyi and, although Jens Lehmann pushed out the header, Wayne Thomas smashed in the loose ball.

Lehmann had hesitated over the delivery by Greenacre which he at first seemed set on catching. Wenger felt the flight of the delivery was deceptive, but, after this, the German goalkeeper will have to put up with this sort of irregular appearance for a bit longer as he seeks to persuade his boss that he should be reinstated permanently at Manuel Almunia's expense.

"We had just enough quality," Wenger admitted of a generally flawed display. Emmanuel Eboue, the Ivory Coast defender signed from Beveren, may have wondered what he had wandered into on his debut. A fairly strong line-up, despite the absence of the rested Thierry Henry, did not focus on its task until the second half.

After 50 minutes Toure crossed and when Thomas merely forced the ball into the middle of the goalmouth Jose Antonio Reyes, back from injury, scored firmly with his right foot.

The match was decided 20 minutes from time when Robin van Persie neatly converted a Robert Pires cut-back with the outside of his left foot.

Stoke still surpassed themselves on an afternoon when someone like Gerry Taggart, a 34-year-old who had not played for two months because of an ankle injury, forced himself to complete the game despite exhaustion that was already obvious by the interval.

Even so, a dash of Arsenal talent was worth more than all the visitors' reserves of endurance.