Stoke City vs Man Utd Preview

By: Wayne Farry | September 25th, 2009

Tomorrow at three o’clock United face Tony Pulis’ upwardly mobile Stoke City team at the Britannia Stadium knowing that even at this early stage of the season it would not be wise to come away with anything other than three points.

Stoke, since their promotion to the EPL in 2007/08, have looked well capable of competing at this level and near unbeatable at times in their own backyard. United did however win there last season thanks to a goal from the now departed Carlos Tevez and a similar result tomorrow would be very welcome.

United have had an unusually good start to the season despite that defeat to Burnley. Since the defeat at Turf Moor we’ve won six games on the trot in all competitions and are looking good, aside perhaps from the ever shaky Ben Foster, who incidentally will keep his place despite the dodgy performances lately, notable against Man City.

At the moment United sit three points behind Chelsea in second while Stoke sit in tenth place. According to Sir Alex we have no fresh injury problems and should have a fairly strong team out against Stoke. Stoke meanwhile are set to be without James Beattie and Ricardo Fuller which should mean a starting place for Tuncay Sanli and the rejuvenated Dave Kitson.

I see it as a good thing that Fuller and Beattie are out as they are both much more combative in the air than either Kitson or Tuncay. But United will still have to be careful playing against a strong team who always fancy themselves at home.

Prediction

I fancy us to win this one though, as I just think that we’re too good for them. With the quality at Sir Alex’s disposal a win should really be expected and I while I don’t think it’ll be extremely comfortable I do think we’ll win by one or two. With Rooney probably getting one, or both them.

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By the way, great to be back posting at The Offside. I’ve been away for ages getting ready for going back to uni and finally have some damn time to write something up. Anyway, expect to see a lot more of me around here from now on.