Cardiff City travel to the Bet365 Stadium to face Stoke City in a big weekend in Championship football. Both sides have had a positive start to the season and are looking to compete for the Play-off places.
Stoke currently sit 11th in the Championship after 14 games. The Potters have six wins, one draw and seven losses, leaving them on 19 points, four points adrift of the final Play-off places.
In their last five games in all competitions, Stoke have three wins and two losses. Stuart Armstrong scored the only goal of the game late in the first half to give Southampton the 1 - 0 win as Stoke only managed two shots on target. Another loss was on the cards against Leicester City. Kelechi Ineanacho and Jamie Vardy both scored in the 2 - 0 win for Leicester in which The Foxes had 74% of the possession and Stoke could only manage two shots with one on target.
However, Stoke bounced back against Sunderland next time out. Ryan Mmaee opened the scoring in the seventh minute, but Jack Clarke equalised just three minutes later. Luke McNally put Stoke back ahead just minutes into the second half as The Potters held on for a 2 - 1 win. Stoke then picked up another win, this time against Leeds. Pascal Struijk’s own goal in the 80th minute was the only goal of the game to give Stoke the 1 - 0 win.
The last time out against Middlesbrough with another win for Stoke. Michael Rose and Mehdi Leris both scored in the first half to give Stoke the 2 - 0 win.
Cardiff, on the other hand, sit sixth. The BlueBirds have seven wins, two draws and five losses which leaves them on 23 points, just two points from Leeds in third place and 11 points from the automatic promotion places.
In their last five games in all competitions, Cardiff have two wins, one draw and two losses. Isaiah Jones and Emmanuel Latte Lath both scored in the second half to give Middlesbrough the 2 - 0 win, with Cardiff only managing three shots on target. The one draw came against Watford. Mark McGuinness opened the scoring for Cardiff in the first half, but Vakoun Issouf Bayo equalised in the second half as the game finished 1 - 1 with Cardiff only managing one shot on target.
However, Cardiff were on the losing side on their trip to Blackburn. Joe Rankin-Costello scored the only goal of the game early in the second half to give Blackburn the 1 - 0 win over Cardiff despite having just one shot on target. The BlueBirds bounced back next time out against Huddersfield. An own goal from Matty Pearson and goals from Dimitrios Goutas, Yakou Meite and Perry Ng gave Cardiff the 4 - 0 win despite having just 43% of the possession.
Ng was on the scoresheet again along with Rubin Colwill in the 2 - 0 win over rivals Bristol City where Cardiff restricted The Robins to just one shot on target despite having just 47% of the possession.
Stoke and Cardiff have met 53 times in their histories with the first meeting coming back in 1921. Stoke have 21 wins in comparison to Cardiff’s 18 wins in the fixture, with the other 14 meetings ending in a draw.