Man City face Stoke....AWAY!

This is the match they all fear. The one fixture all want to avoid when the weather is cold and miserable. They are that thugged out team that force you to play their kind of game, who make it physical, ugly and rough.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the curse of Stoke City Football Club...away from home.


Kompany even came out and said that despite the difficulty there is playing the big teams like Barcelona, Bayern and so forth; Stoke City away is just as hard but for different reasons. Of course, the thugs in red and white are a million miles away from the skill of Messi or Robben. But when a group of ex-convicts tackle hard, push you about, don't allow you to play your football and it's freezing cold; those are still very tough circumstances to play under.

But things are not as bad as they once were...







To be honest, the ideal Stoke City were they were at their height of making their home ground in winter similar to some kind of hell, was when Tony Pulis was about. That's when it was route one, long ball, and there was a larger focus on being aggressive rather than playing sexy football. Pulis has actually shown that he can create a team that can play well, with his work for Crystal Palace and now with West Brom. So that stigma that all he knew was to teach football from the 1600's, was falsified.

Mark Hughes just thrown away that ethos and recognizes how it's a great advantage, especially against a team like Man City who are just so much better than them. Attempting to match them for skill will end in disaster ten times out of ten. But even though there is still that aggression in Stoke's play, they have adopted a bit more of a passing game and try and vary things a bit. So for City, their hope is forcing Stoke to keep the ball on the ground and to chase them, which would leave them in control to put the game to bed before the second half starts.

As the month of December heats up in the Premiership, these are the kinds of games that City slip up on. These are the ones they look back at to hope if only they got the desired points. When you think of how they have won the league both times narrowly, every single point counts. They have to obviously keep their attacking philosophy, knowing that they are much better than Stoke, but guys like Fernando and Fernandinho need to be prepared for a fight and win the midfield. You can't have guile with a bit of grit where the Premiership is concerned.

This match can be won by both teams. Stoke are City's bogey team, and they hate making the trip to this "sunny" part of the world. If the thugs can play their aggressive game and just make things uncomfortable for De Bruyne, Yaya and Sterling, then they can pile on the pressure with those crosses into the box, to force an error from Otamendi or Kompany. On the other hand, De Bruyne has been a great purchase for City, and if his teammates can find him in space and he can combine his great crossing as well as his ability to carry the ball and strike on goal, that may be the strategy for City taking the three points in this game.




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 HH