City boss Manuel Pellegrini recently spoke of the need to be “aggressive from the start” in Stoke, “especially in the first 15 minutes”, so this could be must-see TV with a high-energy tempo.
Advertisement
Liverpool striker Divock Origi is confident that his teammates can “100%” beat Stoke City in the Capital One Cup semi-final, but admits the Potters are a “good team”, as reported by the club’s official website.
Manchester City have only managed two clean sheets in their last nine Premier League games after keeping six in a row directly before that.
The Reds emphatically thumped fellow Premier League side Southampton 6-1 in their respective quarter-final at St. Mary’s Stadium last night.
“But I think we are enjoying these games and we’ll look forward to the two huge ones in the coming weeks”. City will look to Aguero, De Bruyne and Streling to provde the goals as they seek to stretch their lead at the top of the table before the rest of the teams play.
“But it’s in January so we have to wait a little bit”.
Only four points separate Mark Hughes’ 12th-placed team from Liverpool in sixth, and Walters is determined to put their Stadium of Light disappointment behind them.
Their semi-final opponents Stoke moved into the last four with a routine 2-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday, courtesy of strikes from Ibrahim Afellay and Phil Bardsley.
“We were on a great run before the Sunderland away game when we didn’t get the result we wanted”, the 32-year-old told talkSPORT.
City, meanwhile, have responded in style to back-to-back defeats to Liverpool and Juventus by comfortably beating Southampton and Hull City.
Manchester City will be without several players as Fernando, Jesus Navas, Vincent Kompany, Samir Nasri and Pablo Zabaleta are all suffering with injuries.
– Sergio Aguero has bagged five goals in his five Premier League appearances against Stoke.
Toure can dominate games by himself, especially against Everton where he has scored the winning goal on a number of occasions.
Advertisement
The Potters, however, have won just two of their 14 Premier League encounters against the men from Manchester, and it is little surprise that NetBet go 9/2 (5.50) that the home side pick up all three points here.
