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A fascinating battle of physical strength, commitment & determination looks in prospect here with two extremely well organised sides in Stoke City & Birmingham City ready to test each other out.
This match really does look a tough one solve & indeed tight one to call with Stoke City having a tremendously strong home record & Birmingham City coming into this match having gone 10 matches unbeaten.

Stoke City built their success last season on excellent home form & that has again been their key strength this season with 4 wins & 2 draws from their previous 8 league matches.

Only Manchester United & Chelsea have so far succeeded at Stoke City and the fact they have only conceded 9 league goals in 8 home matches shows how strong & solid Stoke City are at home.

There is no real secret to Stoke City tactically & certainly we expect the fantastically passionate Stoke City fans to push the players into producing another solid, organised & indeed direct home performance here.

Alex McCleish said in a recent radio interview that he is running out of superlatives for his players & it is easy to see why given they have gone 10 games unbeaten in the Premier League.

A 0-0 draw at home to Chelsea was the latest step in 10 matches which has seen Birmingham City show fantastic organisation, belief, determination & a fair degree of quality which has pushed them to an incredible 8th place in the table.

The secret to Birmingham City’s success has definitely been their defensive organisation & only Chelsea, Aston Villa & Manchester United have a better defensive record overall so that indicates how strong Birmingham City are.

10 games unbeaten is a tremendous achievement for Birmingham City & that excellent run obviously means they will arrive at this fixture believing they can get another positive result & we are expecting another solid & committed performance from Birmingham City & the will certainly make it a true test.

This is going to be a real battle of 2 physically committed & totally determined sides who prides themselves on team organisation so we are not expecting too many goals & indeed a low scoring draw is a very tempting option but we believe Stoke City are the value call given their incredible strength at home & they can just do enough to edge a very tight game.

Betting Recommendations:

Outright Match Betting: Stoke City win

Correct Score options: Stoke City to win 2-0/2-1

First goalscorer each way/Player to score anytime: Fuller/Shawcross/Tuncay

Scorecast options: Fuller/Shawcross/Tuncay score 1st & Stoke City win 2-0/2-1

Double Result: Stoke City Half Time & Full Time