Wayne Rooney has become Manchester United's all-time record goalscorer after scoring a last-minute free kick to earn his side a 1-1 draw with Stoke City.

The club captain has been waiting to move past Sir Bobby Charlton's record of 249 goals for some weeks, but he finally achieved it with a stunning set piece in the fourth minute of added-on time to deny Stoke.

It was harsh on the home side, who had defended valiantly throughout the match at the Britannia Stadium, but United deserved a share of the spoils and Rooney's strike came in fitting circumstances.

The opening quarter-of-an-hour passed by without incident, but it was the visitors who were in the ascendancy, especially down the right flank through Antonio Valencia and Juan Mata.

However, against the run of play, Stoke went ahead after Mata turned the ball into his own net when attempting to prevent an Erik Pieters cross being played across the six-yard box.

Despite falling behind, United remained on top and after Marouane Fellaini had headed too close to Lee Grant, Mata missed a glorious opportunity at the back post as he fired over from six yards after meeting Zlatan Ibrahimovic's cross.

Chris Smalling and Henrik Mkhitaryan both sent attempts over the crossbar within two minutes of each other, before United threw men forward during the final minutes of the first half.

Fellaini saw a volley tipped over by Grant before the resulting corner led to Paul Pogba being denied by a fine reaction save from the goalkeeper after connecting sweetly from 10 yards.

After the restart, United picked up where they left off but they were struggling to create the same number of chances as they did during the opening 45 minutes.

As for Stoke, they carried more of a threat with Peter Crouch sending a speculative volley wide of the target and Xherdan Shaqiri curling the ball too close to David de Gea.

Jose Mourinho had introduced both Marcus Rashford and Rooney and the pair combined to fashion an opportunity for the younger of the two with 15 minutes left, but Rashford curled wide from around 16 yards out.

Moments later, Rooney had the chance to get on the scoresheet when the ball fell invitingly to him inside the penalty area but he miscued his header over the bar.

Stoke looked a threat on the break but they began to tire towards the closing stages and it only invited pressure from United, with Pogba sending a shot straight at Grant.

The visitors came even closer with two minutes remaining when Jesse Lingard turned on the edge of the penalty area before striking the crossbar from distance with Grant beaten.

It appeared that Stoke were going to hang on for a hard-earned victory but in the fourth minute of added-on time, Rooney found the top corner of Grant's net from the side of the penalty area to make United history.