Stoke City are experiencing a varied start to the Premier League season. Victory over champions Manchester City and Newcastle United has been followed by defeats at the hands of Leicester City and most recently Sunderland. High flying Swansea travel to Stoke in fifth place in the Barclays Premier League despite a run of four league games without a win, most recently a 2-2 draw with Newcastle United.

Charlie Adam was on target for the Potters in that game with his first Premier League goal of the season. Adam has had four efforts on goal this season, all on target.

Stoke fans will be buoyed by the news that Peter Crouch is looking to commit his future to the club. Crouch has netted twice in the Premier League this season, though his shooting accuracy could be improved as the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index shows he's got just 44% of his 13 shots at goal on target so far.

Stoke City will feel equipped to deal with the aerial prowess of Swansea's Wilfried Bony, as in Ryan Shawcross (65) and Marc Wilson (63) they have two of the top ten players in the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index for clearances. Shawcross is also ranked third for blocks with ten.

With Victor Moses ranked third for successful crosses this season (nine), Stoke are likely to pose Swansea problems of their own in defending the ball in the air.

Much has been said about Stoke's defensive play over the seasons but credit is due to Mark Hughes for transforming their style of play, if not the widely cited perception of it. Steven N'Zonzi was ranked 7th in the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index for passes completed in the opposition half against Sunderland 38.

Wilfried Bony scored his first Premier League goal of the season in the game against Stoke to put an end to an uncharacteristically lean spell in front of goal. He was one of only three players to have three shots on target in the last game week as he pushed to break his duck for the season. Bony is 37/20 to score at any time with 888sport.

Overall Bony has had 17 efforts at goal this season with ten on target. Only Diego Costa and Sergio Aguero have had more, and in comparison have scored nine and five goals respectively. If his goal against Newcastle means Bony's fortunes are turning then Stoke may be next to fall victim to the Ivorian striker.

Ashley Williams has continued the season in fine defensive form, and is currently ranked third in the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index for clearances with 75. Williams is also ranked fourth for blocks with nine.

Williams stats also show how comfortable he is playing the ball out of defence. He is ranked ninth overall in the EA SPORTS Player Performance Index for accurate passes, second only to Phil Jagielka in the Premier League's defenders.

In fact, in the last round of games Swansea had three players in the top ten for total accurate passes, Ashley Williams (75), Jonjo Shelvey (73) and Ki Sung-Yeung (73)

Photo: Action Images

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