Charlie Adam's first half goal proved to be enough for Stoke to see off Fulham at the Britannia Stadium.

The Potters made it 13 games without defeat on home soil to move level on points with the visitors, who saw they four match unbeaten run on the road brought to an end.

Martin Jol's men were beaten in their own backyard by Sunderland last Sunday and missed the presence of suspended captain Brede Hangeland, with the hosts seeking to exploit their aerial superiority.

Robert Huth sent an early warning shot across the bow, heading a corner just wide of the post but the Cottagers failed to take heed and were trailing after 26 minutes.

A corner from Ryan Shotton found Peter Crouch and his header set up Adam to touch, swivel and shoot past Mark Schwarzer to score his second goal in three games.

Ryan Shawcross thought he'd doubled the lead after beating Schwarzer with a header from Matthew Etherington's corner, only to see the ball cannon agonisingly back off the crossbar.

From that Fulham launched a swift counter attack but Mladen Petric was unable to apply the finishing touches before a dangerous delivery from Dimitar Berbatov went unchallenged.

Apart from that they were virtual bystanders for much of the 90 minutes and were lucky not to concede more than one goal with Glenn Whelan firing over in the second half after being teed up by Jon Walters.

The away sides best chance of an equaliser fell to the subdued Berbatov, but his strike was kept out by Asmir Begovic as their late attacking flurry failed to produce the desired result.

And Kenwyne Jones thought he'd doubled Stokes lead in the dying embers only to be flagged for offside after mistiming his run to connect with Michael Kightlys pass.