Stoke (a) 20/08/2016 - pre-match thread

[schfc6]

Stoke away in the middle of the day during one of the warmest weeks of the year. Sorted.

Storms predicted. Would be Stoke without wind.

 

[taleofbluehalves]

I'm optimistic for many reasons:
1. We seem to start quickly in games now
2. We press
3. We seem to plan our tactics to beat opposition
4. Loads of confidence after 2 wins
5. Players run and track back
6. Miles more solid at the back
7. Kun is fit a and scoring
8. Pep's had more time to work with the team

 

[marco]

cant see a problem with this one, pep would have had the videos out from last season to see where we went wrong and where they went right, they havnt got that many options so pep will almost certainly be aware of how stoke are going to play,'' Total football again 1-3''

 

[willipp]

Its always one of those fixtures i go into fearing the worst. Going to be tough on the back of a long midweek trip, but hopefully the confidence is sky high and Pep has us firing. Looking forward to our first real test in the league.

 

[The Silver Surfer]

Absolutely not worried. 100% looking forward to this game and despite Stoke being at home and having won these fixtures recently, I think they will be more worried about us.

Annihilate them, City.

 

[teddykgb]

Probably looking at facing a 4-2-3-1 again albeit a much more dynamic one than Sunderland provided. Arnautovic and Shaqiri get very far forward and while they're not the highest workrate players ever they do often get back. Will be an important match for us to catch them when they've committed too far forward and punish them for leaving the space. I think our struggles with them last year were related to not having a ton of position discipline leaving us unable to hurt them when they overcommitted in attack. I think this will be a really good test for this system but expect we will get to play with more space than we've operated in thus far in any match bar the end of the Steaua match where they had gotten really worn out by our system. Annoying that weather may be a factor as I'd really like to see us have a go at this one, should be a really interesting test of our tactics. I'm really interested to see what changes, if any, Pep makes to account for the opponent's strengths. He surely knows Shaqiri well enough and Arnautovic has been such a pain in our ass the last few seasons. I'll be particularly interested in how he addresses those two players.

 

[Rolee]

Any word on Sané? Any chance he's available for this one?

 

[Hoghead]

Noticed on the OS pictures of the squad training in Bucharest the day after the match. Usually they fly back home straight away. Is this another 'Pep' method to avoid the CL midweek hangover and therefore be ready for the match on Saturday?

 

[mariooo]

whose our main worry on the stoke side

 

[Lomas has a lob on]

more confident than I usually am when going to stoke