THOMAS Sorensen had a front row seat for Robinho's deadly finishing and exclaimed: "It shows you what money can buy."

The £32.5m Brazilian star confounded Sorensen's game goalkeeping display three times to condemn Stoke to their heaviest Premier League defeat yet.

Sorensen said: "He's just a quality player. I had most of the goal covered each time, but he hit the corners like a postage stamp every time.

"You have to hold your hand up and say he had a great day. He looks relaxed and is enjoying himself playing football out there.

"The Brazilian way is just to play and they (Man City) found him very well when he finds that space behind your midfield and in front of your back four. He can turn you, shoot, set people up or just run at you himself. Obviously, he made the difference."

But Sorensen insists it wasn't just the Robinho story yesterday as Stoke, too, bared their teeth in front of goal on several unsuccessful occasions.

"I know they had a lot of chances, but we had a few as well," he reasoned. "We have to be disappointed at hitting their keeper instead of a yard to the right or the left of him.

"In these kinds of games, you need to take those chances at 1-0 or 2-0 if you are going to put pressure on them. We did OK, it was just the quality of their finishing that was the big difference."

Sorensen made an immediate return to action yesterday after recovering from the facial wounds requiring a dozen stitches after his ugly collision against Tottenham seven days earlier.

And a string of fine saves suggests he was true to his pre-match promise that he would conquer any psychological hangover from his unfortunate acquaintance with Alan Hutton's stray studs a week previous.

"I had the stitches out and that helped because it was tight and itchy. The doctor wanted me to keep them, in case anything else happened in the game, but luckily he went along with my feelings in the end."

Sorensen is now relishing the prospect of Wednesday's meeting with old club Sunderland to not only flush yesterday's defeat out of the system, but also because of the three priceless points on the table.

"It is nice to have a game only a couple of days away," he said. "It is against a team that had a great result this weekend, but it is at home and another one we need to get a result from.

"I think we can take a lot of good things from this game – we just need to be a bit sharper in front of goal in the Premier League."