Man United vs Stoke City – Preview & Prediction

Man United vs Stoke City – Preview & Prediction

Manchester United come into this Premier League match against Mark Hughes’ Stoke City at the right time as the Potters sit at the bottom of the Barclays Premier League with a mere 2 points from their 6 games and are winless. You could argue that it is the wrong time as Stoke almost won their last game against West Brom just giving up the equaliser in injury time so there is no denying that the Potters are due a win so United need to take the game with a serious amount of care.

History however, is very much on United’s side as they have won every one of the 8 Premier League matches they have played against Hughes’ men at Old Trafford. Along with Wigan Athletic they have played the most matches against these teams and maintained their 100% record.

Stoke do have a decent record in the recent meetings as they have won two matches and drawn one at the Britannia Stadium while losing two matches at Old Trafford of the last 5 encounters.


Again the home record for Manchester United is impressive to say the least as they have not lost in their last 16 home games including all competitions when pitting their witts against the Potters winning 15 games while drawing 1, including a super impressive winning streak of 13 in a row.

Wayne Rooney has not started in the past two games (both wins of course) but did come on for the last 23 minutes against Zorya Luhansk and was involved in the goal as Ibrahimovic nodded in Rooney’s mishit volley – so maybe the captain’s luck is turning. Rooney is a good bet to start against Stoke as he has scored four and assisted two more in his last three PL appearances against Stoke at Old Trafford which is a record which you would imagine makes him pretty hard to overlook for this game. The counter argument to starting Rooney is that United have won five of the last seven Premier League games that the captain hasn’t started. Another slight downer is that October is not JM’s favourite month as he has lost three of his last four games he has managed in the Premier League in the month.

Some positives for United are that the seemingly now “in-favour’ Juan Mata has had a part in 82 goals – a joint high for midfielders) since playing in the Premier League (assisting on 41 goals and scoring 41 goals) which actually ties him with Man City’s Spaniard David Silva. Another big positive is that Manchester United’s most recent title triumph under SAF back in 2012-13 saw them start the season as they have this campaign with four wins and two defeats.

The bad news for Stoke is that four of the last six Premier League teams to open up with only two points from their first six games like Stoke have gone on to be relegated.

We think that United probably won’t be allowed to make it pretty as Stoke will set up defensively and make it hard for United to break them down so a 2-1 scoreline seems likely.

What do you think?

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