City are back on the road on Wednesday, as they pay a visit to the Britannia to play Stoke in the Premier League. It’s been a tough few weeks, but it might not be getting any easier where City have struggled in recent years, and might do again.
It’s been 17 months since City last travelled to Stoke, and on that day City were also unable to get a win on a tough day during a 0-0 draw that typified City’s early-season poor away form in the last campaign. However, that wasn’t a one-off – we’ve struggled to win at the Britannia for some time now, with the last win there coming all the way back in January 1999, in Division 2. 16 years ago (although, we didn’t play them for 9 of those years).
In the game against Stoke earlier this season, on our own turf, it was another difficult day as we lost out 1-0 to Mark Hughes and his side. We got our tactics wrong that day, struggling to break Stoke down with the counter-attack and then struggling to deal with the counter-attacks, one of which led to their winner from Mame Biram Diouf. That game is one of the ones that you think had it gone differently, we might just be top of the league now.
City are still without injury after both Samir Nasri and Eliaquim Mangala got back to fitness before the Hull game at the weekend. However, City are still without two key players – Yaya Touré and Wilfried Bony, who, despite winning the African Cup of Nations on Sunday, still need to return to their home country for a ceremony before they can return to City, which means they won’t be able to feature at the Britannia.
Stoke on the other hand, have several players missing for the visit of the champions. Marc Wilson and Ryan Shawcross are both out with groin injuries, whilst Bojan and Peter Odemwingie both miss out because of ACL injuries that will keep them out for some time still. Erik Pieters (inguinal hernia) is out, as is former City man Stephen Ireland, who has a hamstring injury. There is some good news for Stoke fans – Marko Arnautović, who has been out with an ankle injury, is set to have a late fitness test and could make it back to face City on Wednesday.
As this long run without a win drags on, a victory – even at a place as tough as Stoke – becomes imperative. We’ve got some big games coming up and need to be on some sort of form to go into them with any sort of confidence. Of course, the big reason could be the absence of Yaya and Bony, and we may well pick up when they return, but we need to show we can do it without them – fun fact: we haven’t won an away league game without Yaya for over two years now. However, they aren’t back for the Stoke game, which gives us ample opportunity to smash that record and get our season back on track (for the second time).
