Potters a nice price at the John Smith's
Huddersfield Town welcome Stoke City to the John Smith’s Stadium on Friday evening in hoping to strengthen their play-off push.
The Terriers are currently sat in sixth place but with the likes of Nottingham Forest, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United, Luton Town and Stoke City looking menacing from outside the top six, very few people are expecting Carlos Corberan’s men to stay there.
Huddersfield are in their third and final season of parachute payments and considering the first two were spent battling relegation, Corberan and the squad have significantly overperformed this season.
D’Margio Wright-Phillips, son of Shaun, nephew of Bradley and grandson of Ian Wright has emerged as an exciting attacking talent for the Potters in recent weeks and it will be interesting to see which striker combination Michael O’Neill selects in looking to tame the Terriers.
Process
Stoke edge it looking at the underlying numbers and have come out the other side of an injury crisis in the last few weeks.
There was a point in the season where the Potters looked the most likely club to challenge Fulham, Bournemouth and West Bromwich Albion at the top of the table, but the last couple of months have not been kind to them, resulting in them falling out of the play-offs.
Stoke lost out to direct rival Coventry City last time out to a 1-0 scoreline and they can close the gap between themselves and the Terriers to just three points in victory.
Huddersfield will be confident off the back of scoring four at Reading last weekend, with Danny Ward scoring an impressive hat-trick to prove that he is the man to lead the line in the second half of the season.
Sorba Thomas has been a breakout star in the EFL this season and his threat along with that of Danel Sinani, Josh Koroma and flying full backs Harry Toffolo and Pipa will be a lot for Stoke to handle.
Goals?
Not my angle for this one, Stoke will look to be hard to beat as is O’Neill’s natural reaction to a defeat, however they certainly have the players to hurt Huddersfield in transition.
Huddersfield have scored in nine of ten.
Huddersfield have conceded in eight of ten.
Huddersfield have seen both teams score in eight of ten.
Huddersfield have seen over 2.5 goals in five of ten.
Stoke have scored in six of ten.
Stoke have conceded in six of ten.
Stoke have seen both teams score in three of ten.
Stoke have seen over 2.5 goals in three of ten.
Unders is tempting but I cannot deny the quality in the Stoke side, they have the experience and leadership in their ranks to get back on track with a positive result.
Post bet chat Marcus's Tips:
Stoke left furious by some refereeing decisions, Jacob Brown came off the bench to earn a point. 1-1.