LONDON – Stoke City and Arsenal fought out a largely sterile 0-0 draw at the Britannia Stadium on Sunday leaving both still looking for their first wins of the season after also drawing last week's openers.

Arsenal, who drew 0-0 with Sunderland last week, went closest to a goal seconds from time when French striker Olivier Giroud crashed in a hopeful angled shot from 40 metres out that just flew over the bar.

However, he might have done even better if he had played the ball in to the unmarked Aaron Ramsey who would have probably had a better scoring chance.

Stoke, who opened with a 1-1 draw at Reading last week, went close with a Peter Crouch effort, but although Arsenal dominated territorially and had 16 goal attempts to Stoke's four they failed to break down a typically resolute home defence.

Liverpool were meeting champions Manchester City in the day's later match at Anfield (1500GMT).