Football – England – Premier League
Saturday 3rd May 2014 – Kickoff: 1500hrs
Mid-table Stoke City take on relegation strugglers Fulham at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday afternoon with the hosts looking to bounce back with a final home win following last Saturday’s defeat to Tottenham.
Stoke lost 0-1 to Europe hopefuls Tottenham last week but the general mood at the Britannia has been of a buoyant nature as The Potters have won five of their last seven on home turf which includes wins over Manchester United, Arsenal, West Ham, Hull City and Newcastle United while their only defeats in their last fifteen home matches have been against Premier league leaders Liverpool and the aforementioned Tottenham.
Stoke are in fact a very difficult team to beat at the Britannia as their overall home record of 9-6-3 23/16 shows, and have lost the least amount of home games of all the teams outside of the top five which is some achievement.
The Potters also hold a solid record over the bottom half teams at home too with a record of 5-3-1 11/5 and they’ve kept a total of seven clean sheets overall during the season, four of which have come against bottom half opposition.
Fulham make the trip up to Stoke-on-Trent on the back of a 2-2 draw at home with Hull City last weekend but they’ve won just twice in their last six matches overall (2-1 at Aston Villa and 1-0 at home against Norwich City) but they face a tough challenge of getting something at The Britannia this Saturday.
Their challenge is made that much harder given the fact that they’ve won just once on their travels out of their last nine matches which was the win at Villa, and in addition, away goals have been scarce for The Cottagers away from home with no fewer than nine blanks within an overall away record of 4-2-12 15/43 – and only Norwich City (44 goals) have conceded more goals on the road than Fulham so far this season.
The stats look bleak for Fulham going into today’s match and their best hope appears to be a point here with a view to winning their final match at Craven Cottage against Crystal Palace next week. Stoke are a hard team to break down and I think they’ll get the job done here in what could be a 1-0 win. Expect a low-scoring game as I recommend taking Stoke with the round ball (remember Fulham are fighting for Premiership survival).
Pick: Stoke City AH0 @ 1.70 Pinnacle
