Stoke City v Fulham Premier League preview

3 January 2010 by Barrie | Football Betting Expert

These two sides fielded strong teams in their FA Cup 3rd round victories on Saturday ahead of this, the opening Premier League game of the new decade.

Stoke City

Tony Pulis may be hoping Saturday’s 3-1 victory over York City in the FA Cup will give his side a confidence boost after a run of 6 Premier League games without a win, including 3 straight defeats. Ricardo Fuller scored a rare goal in that game as both he and James Beattie are struggling in the league. Goals have been hard to come by, without a goal in their last 3 league games to be precise. Rory Delap’s long throws aren’t as successful as last season. Beattie isn’t scoring as regularly as he was when he joined this time last year. Perhaps Pulis is considering signing a new striker this January to freshen things up. However he does have Tuncay on his books who isn’t getting as much time as I believe he deserves. He is both a goalscorer and playmaker and could be a great addition up front with neither of their current strikers proving valuable this season. Matthew Etherington has chipped in with a number of assists this season. Set pieces have been a reliable source of goals for Stoke again this season, but they either need to crank the number up from them or score more from open play before they get sucked into a relegation battle.

Form
LDLLL

Injuries/Suspensions
n/a

Fulham

They performed very well defensively for most of the game at Chelsea, after Zoltan Gera gave Fulham an early lead over Chelsea last weekend. But after John Pantsil went off injured, Didier Drogba pulled away from his marker to head in a late equaliser, before Chris Smalling was unfortunate to deflect the ball into his own net and give Chelsea 3 points. Smalling rebounded with a top performance in their 1-0 victory over Swindon in the FA Cup and received praise from Barry Flatman of the Times amongst others. Smalling could start this game too with Brede Hangeland still a doubt to recover from his knee injury for this match. Fulham remain in the top half and have the opportunity to close the gap on Birmingham and Liverpool above them with this game, being their game in hand. Defensively they are strong which could make for a dull game with few chances. The weather won’t help things. This fixture finished 0-0 last season and Fulham won 1-0 against Stoke at Craven Cottage last season. Who’s expecting this to be a classic?

Form
WDWDL

Injuries/Suspensions
John Pantsil
Seol Ki-Hyeon

This is one of the strongest candidates on the fixture list for a goalless draw this season. An evening game, cold temperatures and two defensive minded teams. Although both teams will be looking to win this more than avoid defeat, a single goal should still be enough to win this one.

Best bet: Under 2.5 goals 4/6