Stoke City’s nightmare festive fixtures continue with a trip to Stamford Bridge next on the agenda for Mark Hughes and his boys. The Potters, who have somewhat recovered after a horrific start to the season, have been dealt with some difficult fixtures in recent weeks with Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea along with Leicester and Southampton as opponents.
While a win against the Big 3 is always a tough ask, they would have loved to have one of the draws against the other two teams to have been a win.
They have a couple of matches after Chelsea which should be counted as winnable but Stoke should be focusing on the match at hand and look to end the year on a high. Not much will be expected of them and they should look to express themselves.
The Chelsea backline hasn’t been put under much pressure and the likes of Crouch should look to impose himself on the Blues.
Either way, Chelsea will be under pressure to extend their 12-match winning streak and the onus will be on the Blues to come up with a performance befitting of a team at the top, ahead by 7 points.
Stoke will be missing Arnautovic who is serving his suspension while Muniesa is still a doubt.
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Predicted 3-4-2-1 Stoke City Lineup Vs Chelsea
DEFENCE
Lee Grant will be in goal and he will be coming prepared in anticipation of a busy 90 minutes. The likes of Costa, Hazard and Pedro are on song and the Potters have to be on top of their game in order to avoid a hiding.
Hughes is likely to go with 3 at the back and in that case Johnson, Shawcross and Martins Indi will be lining up.
They have to cut down on any individual errors and should try and make Chelsea work hard if they are to breach the defence.
