Stoke City vs Liverpool – League Cup – Preview

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Sreya

Stoke City will host Liverpool at the Britannia Stadium on Tuesday in the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-finals. Both sides are coming off demoralizing defeats in the English Premier League on the weekend. While Stoke City fell to a 2-1 defeat at the Hawthorns against West Bromwich Albion, Liverpool were particularly underwhelming during their 2-0 loss at West Ham United.

In the road to the semi-finals, Liverpool defeated Carlisle United, AFC Bournemouth and Southampton while Stoke City emerged victorious against Luton Tow, Fulham, Chelsea and Sheffield Wednesday.

Team News

Liverpool were missing Daniel Sturridge (hamstring), Jordan Henderson (ankle), Divock Origi (hamstring) and Martin Skrtl in the weekend through injuries. These four are, once again, unlikely to feature on Tuesday.

Jordon Ibe returned to the lineup after missing Liverpool’s win against Sunderland with an illness. James Milner is expected to return to the matchday squad having recovered from his calf strain. Jurgen Klopp might choose the experienced Simon Mignolet in goal instead of the error-prone Adam Bogdan who started in the cup ties previously.

Geoff Cameron is suspended for the home side after the American was sent off in the weekend. Mark Hughes will also be without the injured Marc Muniesa and Stephen Ireland, both of whom are sidelined with hamstring issues.

Thoughts From Both Camps

“I don’t think it’s important to get a lead, I think it’s important to be in the game. The majority of us in the dressing room have played two-legged games before, I certainly have like you’ve seen with the national team not long ago.

Hopefully we can get a good result on Tuesday, and if we’re still in the game then it turns into a proper cup game. Liverpool have a lot good players that can hurt teams, so it will be a tough game, so we’ve got to be right at it.”

– Jon Walters, Stoke City.

“We’ve got a new game coming up very quickly, the semi-final, so hopefully we can put things straight there because it’s very important. Hopefully we can do well against Stoke. Any game we play we want to win. We focus on the next game in hand.

We’re featuring in all competitions and that’s a positive thing. We can do well in all of the cup competitions we’re featuring in. We’ll try to do our best in the next game – that’s Stoke so we’ll focus on that.”

– Simon Mignolet, Liverpool.

Contributor’s Pick

According to Head-2-Head statistics, Liverpool have won 52% of their encounters with Stoke City. It should be a closely contested affair as both sides have been in decent form off late. However, fatigue might come into play for Klopp’s side with the trip to Britannia being Liverpool’s fourth fixture in just eleven days. The home side are likely to win with a probable scoreline of 2-1.