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Saints V Stoke City The Preview
Friday, 20th Nov 2015 14:21

Saints take on Stoke City aiming to beat the Potters and head towards the top five in the Premier League.

Since our return to the Premier we have met Stoke City six times in the League and once in the cup, last season was the first time that there was a positive result for either side, with Saints edging out Stoke at home in the Premier League to end a run of four straight draws and following it up four days later by beating them in the Capital One Cup.

Stoke of course had their revenge in April winning 2-1 at the Brittania and now Saints look to get payback of their own on Saturday afternoon and in doing so propel themselves into the top six for sure and perhaps higher.

Stoke will be no pushovers though, they stand third in the Premier League current form tables over the last six games with only Saints and Arsenal above them in this rating.

Saints will take solace though in the fact that in that run of four wins a draw and a defeat that Stoke have had a relatively easy ride, they started this run with three straight wins against Bournemouth (h) Villa (a) Swansea (a) all by a single goal, lost at home to Watford 2-0, then drew at Newcastle 0-0 in a game that only Jack Butland kept hem in and then beat Chelsea 1-0.

A pattern there is emerging and that is they keep it tight and nick a goal here and there, Mark Hughes has fused the old Stoke long ball side of Tony Pulis with a little more football, but ultimately the same graft is in the side.

So Saints will need to break them down and then keep it tight themselves, with Jay Rodriguez back it is timely that Shane Long can return, however after barely training he will have felt 40 minutes for his country on Tuesday and so Ronald Koeman will use him sparingly perhaps as a get out of jail card if needed,

This could give Juanmi an opportunity to show what he can do and certainly his clever style of play could be a factor off the bench.

It is going to be no easy game and it is one that Saints need to win if they wish to emulate last season, at Sunderland Saints showed they can win ugly and they will need to do so again against the Potters who will scrap for every ball.

The key is to do as they did at Sunderland, keep tight and take the opportunity when it comes.

Ronald Koeman could make a couple of changes, he will have to decide whether to bring in Wanyama back from suspension and Soares who was on the bench in a tactical move, my feeling is he will do both with JWP and Yoshida making way.

Otherwise unless there is any unknown injury issues it will be pretty much as it was at Sunderland.

Saints fans will be looking for Jordy Clasie to continue his improvement with every game, he is highly rated both by his manager and team mates and his ability to move the ball quickly could be the difference between the two sides.


Photo: Action Images



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IWOZTHERE added 16:03 - Nov 20
It's great being an 'armchair critic'......'JayRod back?' I'd apply for the post of 'Cock-up' checker but the hours would be too long! (sorry NIck, couldn't help myself)
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schatfield added 16:07 - Nov 20
Agree that this will be 1 tough game. Shame that Butland is playing so well for them at the moment. They will sit tight in defense and try and hit us on the break for sure, so it will be a very cagey game. Could swing either way, but I would pump 1-0 to Saints of course!
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