By 
It’s time for the Premier League game at Britannia Stadium, and Stoke City are due to host Manchester City in Game Week 15 on Saturday, November 27.
Stoke are coming off a 3-0 win over West Brom on Matchday 14, a victory made possible in large part by a pair of penalties. The score does not reveal how close the game really was, and the first penalty to give the Potters the lead in the 55th minute was a tough decision that went against the Baggies. That said, Tony Pulis’ men seized the opportunity with both hands and took three points from the match. In the process, Stoke picked up their third successive win this season.
Jon Walters came on as a substitute and scored two late goals to close out the game for his team. Walters’ effort could give him a start against City. All of Pulis gave a good account of themselves on the day, with Begovic making some good saves between the posts to keep the score clean. The result has moved Stoke into the top half of the points table.
Manchester City thrashed Fulham, led by their former boss, Mark Hughes, 4-1 on Matchday 14. Mancini had been booed by City fans after successive draws. His strikers effectively exorcised the ghosts of those two games with a fluidity not seen before at the Premier League’s richest club this season. Fulham had invited Diego Maradona to watch the game, and Argentine City players Tevez and Zabaleta turned up for inspiration.
We can gauge the scale of City’s performance when we consider that Mancini’s men had scored just 15 goals in their previous 13 games. Returning from injury, Salcido was no match for Tevez, who, fueled by a pass from Gareth Barry, fooled Fulham’s Mexican defender and put City ahead six minutes into the game. Fulham never quite recovered after that, and while they did manage to narrow the margin after the break, it was too little, too late, against a team that swept everyone on the day.
Head to head, Manchester City lead Stoke, 4-3, in their last eight league meetings. Their last meeting, also at the Britannia, ended in a 2-2 draw, in February of this year.
While Stoke have had a reasonable home record, winning four games and drawing one, Manchester City have had the best away record of any team, winning four out of seven. In their current form, City should get through what is likely to be a very close game.
Stoke City featured the following players in their starting XI against West Brom: Begovic, Wilkinson, Shawcross, Huth, Collins, Pennant, Whitehead, Delap, Etherington, Jones and Fuller; the Potters used Sanli, Walters and Wilson as substitutes.
The following men made up Manchester City’s starting XI against Fulham: Hart, Zabaleta, Toure, Kompany, Kolarov, Y Toure, De Jong, Barry, Jo, Tevez and Silva; Johnson, Vieira, and Milner came on as second-half substitutes.