Stoke will fancy their chances strongly
Stoke City manager Mark Hughes has been speaking to their official website about the trip to London to face Tottenham Hotspur today and feels they have the versatility to approach and handle any situation in the game.
"They made a few changes from their Premier League side on Thursday and you'd image that some of those will come back in.
"You look at Tottenham's team sheet and they've got good quality and have spent a lot of money on individual talent. On their day they can beat anybody so it's up to us to make sure we don't allow them to have one of their better days.
"We have got to be strong and solid ourselves. We have got threats that they will be worried about as well so in terms of confidence, we're looking forward to it.
"The key is just to build the performance. Sometimes you'll need a certain type of play and you'll have to be offensive and at other times you'll have to be a little bit more defensive when the momentum shifts.
"We've got the capacity to use a lot of game plans – we can play counter attack, we can play the possession game or we can be on the front foot as we were last week."
You would image that Stoke will start fast and try to target the weakness we show week in week out, not being mentally ready for the start of the game. WBA, Liverpool are just two games where we could have conceded within 2 minutes of the kick-off.
The hope for them will be to grab an early goal which puts us under pressure and changes the nature of the game. Following that period, whether they have scored or not, they may well play on the counter attack or they could play possession football. We struggle against a defensive side because we don't have much width, unless our full-backs provide us with any the defence can crush together preventing any gaps on a small pitch.
You'd imagine the second-half would be much of the same. Stoke will want to come out of the box flying while we will want to have a kip and ease our way into it again. We did it in midweek against Asteras Tripolis and they had two chances in a minute and a half.
Stoke will then want to keep it tight and try to nick a goal to hold on for the three points. Despite being at home Spurs can't be made favourites because not only can we not be trusted but the football we are producing is pretty awful.
Having lost three at home already and lost the last three after UEFA Europa League ties, despite having different teams, Stoke City is not a game we can be confident about. If it boils down to who wants it more there is only one winner and it isn't us so let's keep the fingers crossed that moments of individual skill can win the day.
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