Stoke will want to continue the good run of results when they host holders Manchester City, having escaped defeat at St James’ Park by scoring in injury time.

Meanwhile, the Citizens are desperate to end a four-match winless run as their title bid could very well end at Britannia if the poor streak continues.

Stoke City have been making steady progress since Mark Hughes took over the reigns and this is true for both style of play and results.

The Potters have played some good football this season and currently occupy tenth position in the league standings, hoping to further improve it by the end of the campaign.

Stoke were very unfortunate to have star player Bojan Krkic suffer a season-ending injury at theend of January, but they, nonetheless, continued to impress.

The Potters took seven points from last three league matches, recording back to back wins over Leicester and QPR before sharing spoils with Newcastle, and they are 2.28 (32/25) to stop Man City from winning at the Britannia.

Ryan Shawcross and Erik Pieters have both been ruled out, whereas Stephen Ireland faces a fitness test as he battles a hamstring problem.

Bojan Krkic and Peter Odemwingie are both long-term casualties and are not expected to return by the end of the season.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Begovic – Bardsley, Wollscheid, Muniesa, Wilson – N’Zonzi, Whelan – Walters, Moses, Diouf – Crouch.

Even if they were level on points with leaders Chelsea just few days ago, Manchester City are in danger of seeing their title bid crumble long before the season finale.

The latest poor run of results started when Yaya Toure took off for Africa Cup of Nations, with the Citizens failing to win any of the five games when the Ivorian was missing.

As a result, they now sit huge seven points off the top of the standings and obviously face a must-win game against Stoke.

The Citizens can be backed at 1.73 (8/11) to win at the Britannia, but it remains to be seen whether they can end the barren run.

Manuel Pellegrini has confirmed that Yaya Toure and Wilfried Bony will miss the trip to Stoke having just returned from international duty.

The good news is that the Chilean has no other selection worries, although he is likely to make changes to the team that narrowly escaped defeat to Hull.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Hart – Zabaleta, Kompany, Mangala, Kolarov – Fernando, Fernandinho – Nasri, Aguero, Silva – Dzeko.