Sports Blog 31/10/2016: Premier League Preview – Stoke vs Swansea, Monday 31st October 2016

Can Stoke build on their recent upswing with victory over a visiting Swansea at 8pm on Sky Sports 1?

While it might be a bit too early in the season to be talking about 6 point-ers, it probably isn’t an exaggeration to state that Swansea are going to be in an even more unenviable position if they lose on Monday night. With 1 win (all the way back on the opening day of the season), 2 draws and 6 losses only so far only Sunderland have been worse than the Swans in 2016/17. Fans were quite rightly were expecting big things from the Welsh side after they finished last year with 6 wins in their final 11 games; instead they are on their second manager of the season already, with Francesco Guidolin replaced by the Premier League’s first ever American chief, Bob Bradley.



Since Bradley took over there have just about been signs that Swansea may soon see a change in fortune. They ran Arsenal close in the American’s first game in charge, while manged a 0-0 draw against Watford to bring to an end a 5 game losing streak (all competitions). If Swansea are to improve any further then they will need Gylfi Sigurdsson, at a Super Mega PGM of 21-15, and the fresh from injury Fernando Llorente, at 16-20, to start pulling their weight a bit more on the goals front.

Stoke suffered a similar awful start to the new season, one that has, however, begun to turnaround in the last couple of weeks. Late 1-1 draws against West Brom and Manchester United ended the Potters’ own 5 game losing streak, before Stoke picked it up a gear against Sunderland and Hull, beating both relegation rivals 2-0.

Vital to the side’s recovery has been summer-signing Joe Allen. The Welshman has scored 4 times in his last 4 games, and heads into Monday night at a Super Mega PGM of 17-21. Xherdan Shaqiri also impressed against Hull, nabbing both goals to leave him at 18-22. Less impressive have been Stoke’s actual strikers: Marko Arnautovic has more yellow cards than goals, while Wilfried Bony is yet to find the back of the net – both are at Super Mega PGMs of 26-31.

Given that momentum is on their side, and Bob Bradley hasn’t had too many games to implement his changes, our traders fancy the home side to pile more misery onto the visitors, offering a Stoke/Swansea Goal Supremacy spread of 0.3-0.5 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.65-2.85.

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