Bolton Wanderers vs Stoke City Preview

Oh joy, time for another away game. Only this time its against strong candidates for relegation and a team currently sitting in 19th position after an awful start to the season - Bolton Wanderers. As a Stoke fan I don't need reminding what happened last time these two teams met, the Potters thumped our opponents 5-0 at Wembley where we saw the very best of Stoke and the very worse of Bolton. Lets hope for more of the same on Sunday.

But despite the fantastic memories of that match, this season Stoke have constantly let down it's travelling fans away from home with characterless performances where we revert back to the hoofball tactics we've been wrongly accused of in the past. We also never seem to be brilliant against the sides we should beat, take Sunderland for example, after our away game against Dynamo Kiev we visited the Stadium of Light when the Mackems were not very good at all having not won in the season until that match - they beat Stoke 4-0. Hopefully we can break that post European away day curse this weekend, even a draw would be nice.

Predicted line-up

Begovic

Wilkinson - Shawcross - Woodgate - Wilson

Pennant - Whelan - Delap - Etherington

Walters - Crouch

Couple of maybes, Shawcross and Wilson didn't travel to Israel due to injuries they picked up against Newcastle so they may be a doubt, however they will have had six days rest so hopefully they'll be fit enough to play. Higginbotham should at least make the bench, he played the full match on Thursday and for a player returning from a long term injury it'd be surprising to see him play again - although he could come on as a sub for Wilson or Shawcross in the second half. Pennant and Etherington didn't get game time against Maccabi Tel Aviv so they should be fully fit to bomb down the wings on Sunday to put crosses into a strike force of Walters and Crouch or Jones. 

Predicted score

Bolton Wanderers 1 - 2 Stoke City

Its either going to be that or 1 - 1. Really cannot see us coming home with no points, and if we do it will of course be a massive disappointment. However the nice away win in Europe coupled with Bolton's atrocious form of late means that we should really be getting an absolute minimum of a point from this match. A point in which I would be happy with considering our away from in the league recently.