All eyes will be on Stoke City’s new signing, 23 year old Bojan Krkic who might be the coup of the summer as he signed from Barcelona after being on loan at Ajax the previous season and failing to make much of an impact with the Dutch champions. Surprisingly, Stoke City are injury costless to start the season, which Phil Hughes will be thankful for as they have very winnable matches to start the season against the likes of Hull, Newcastle, and two newly promoted sides in Leicester and Queen’s Park Rangers.
The only real test for the Potters in the first month of action is when they have to take a trip to the Etihad Stadium to face on the reigning Premier League champions, Manchester City.
Stoke have plenty of options up front to choose from throughout the course of the season as they can utilize different styles with Bojan, Peter Odemwinge, Peter Crouch, Marko Arnautovic, Cameron Jerome, Mame Diouf, and Jonathon Walters. If each of Stoke’s striking options can find the back of the net on five different occasions, then that would be a big success for them and will certainly help in the long run.
The only part that is worry some about this Stoke side is their lack of depth in the midfield position. As we look at their roster, they only have seven options for that area of the pitch and one or two may not be used as heavily as the others. If any go down injured, this could put a halt on the Potters progress as they are hopeful of a top half finish.
“We have to go out there and now and produce. It’s not going to be easy of course because a lot of teams will be hopeful of the season ahead and their expectations will be similar to ours. Perhaps they just don’t flag it up as regularly as we do,” Phil Hughes said in his press conference.
On the other end, the Villains will be without star forward Christian Benteke, who will return from ACL in September. This will be a huge blow for Paul Lambert and his squad as he does not have much of a strike force outside of veterans Darren Bent and Charles N’Zogbia. Aston Villa will also be without Czech striker, Libor Kozak. Even though he only made 14 appearances last season, this depreciates the Lambert’s options up top, which could haunt them throughout the first month of the season.
The lack of strikers is really worrying. If one more goes down injured Lambert will have is work cut out by trying desperately to find goals from some other area. The Villains do have Andreas Wiemann who is a 23 year old attacking midfielder who has pace and technical ability to provide some goal assistance along with Gabby Agbonlahor, who is not much of a goal threat.
Villa though just singed World Cup veteran Carlos Sanchez who will add some defensive presence in front of the back four as he was signed from Spanish outfit Elche, after making 30 league experience. "Carlos is a very experienced professional who played a prominent role in a Colombian team which captured everyone's imagination at this summer's World Cup in Brazil. He's a great coup for Villa," Paul Lambert stated in his interview about him today for avfc.co.uk.
I am expecting Stoke City to win 2-0 with Bojan Krkic to net both goals. Aston Villa will not try to sit back and withstand pressure although they will not be able to get any past Bosnian Asmir Begovic.