For the very end of the 30th round of the English Premier League we have a completely unequal duel, which will be played between the penultimate Stoke and the leading Manchester City, which currently has an incredible advantage of as many as 51 points. It is quite clear that the “Citizens” are valid for the absolute favourites in this match, especially since they celebrated over the team of Stoke with 7-2 in the fall part of the championship at their Etihad.
The home team is not thinking too much about their previous duels with Manchester City, but they are confident that they have experienced only one defeat in the last six rounds, and it was away against Bournemouth, while they have made one win and two draws on their field. Still, those somewhat better performances of the team of Stoke have not yet pulled them out of the relegation zone, as they are currently on the penultimate spot on the table, with the proviso that the 13th Swansea is only three points away.
This means that there is an extremely demanding period ahead of them, especially since they still have nine rounds to play until the end of the championship, so they must give their maximum in every new match if they want to survive in the elite rank. For this reason, there must be no fear before this match with the leading Manchester City, for which they only cannot count on the injured midfielder Ireland and striker Diouf.
Probable lineups Stoke: Butland – Bauer, Shawcross, Zouma, Stafylidis – Cameron, Ndiaye – Shaqiri, Allen, Choupo-Moting – Crouch
Unlike Stoke, which is struggling to survive, the “Citizens” from Manchester are only counting the days till the official promotion of the title of new English champions, because they currently have 16 points more than Manchester United. In addition, they have recently won the League Cup trophy after defeating the team of Arsenal with a big 3-0 win at Wembley, while they last week, despite the home defeat from Basel, confirmed their placement in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Coach Guardiola has, after a victory of 4-0 in Basel, sent a combined team to the field, which did not show much effort, so the final 2-1 was actually the most realistic outcome of the match. However, now we expect the maximally serious approach from the “Citizens”, regardless of the fact that they cannot count on the insufficiently recovered defender Mendy for this match, as well as midfielders Fernandinho and Delph and striker Sterling.
Probable lineups Manchester City: Ederson – Walker, Kompany, Otamendi, Zinchenko – de Bruyne, Gundogan, D.Silva – B.Silva, Aguero, Sane
Of course it is too redundant to say that leading “Citizens” are valid for the big favourites in this match with the penultimate Stoke, but just the fact that the hosts are still struggling to survive could probably bring some uncertainty to the match this time.
Pick: Asian Handicap +2
Stoke 1.68 - 68/100 @1XBet