Stoke v Birmingham preview

Larsson: Injury concern for Blues

PREDICTIONS:

Skysports.com prediction: Stoke 1 Birmingham 1

SKY BET odds: Stoke 11/8, Draw 9/4, Birmingham 2/1

One to Watch: Christian Benitez

Bet on Monday's match

Related links

Teams

• Birmingham City
• Stoke City

Also see

• Score Centre
• Soccer Saturday on PC
• Fantasy Football

Stoke City will be hoping for home comforts as they take on Birmingham City in a West Midlands derby on Monday.

The Potters are famed for turning the Britannia Stadium into a Premier League fortress since promotion to the top-flight in 2008, but Tony Pulis' side are rapidly becoming homesick on their travels following the Boxing Day defeat to Manchester City.

The 2-0 reverse at Eastlands saw Pulis' men extend their winless away run to five games and it has been three matches since they scored away from the Britannia and December's overall record does not easy reading for Potters fans having collected just one point against bottom-placed Portsmouth.

The Stoke faithful have two consecutive home fixtures to roar their team to success, but neither will be easy with in-form Fulham coming to town after the visit of high-flying Birmingham.

The Blues are in fine fettle as they made it 10 games unbeaten with the goalkeeping heroics of Joe Hart ensuring the second city outfit took a point from their Boxing Day clash with league-leaders Chelsea.

Alex McLeish's team were unfortunate not to snatch all three points when Christian Benitez saw his goal chalked off for offside and they will be desperate to maintain their fine run which is sees them on par with fierce rivals Aston Villa as the league's form team.

Concern

McLeish's success has largely come from naming a settled starting XI but the Blues boss is sweating on the availability of his set-piece specialist Sebastian Larsson for the trip to Stoke.

Larsson is having his fitness assessed on Sunday after the Sweden international midfielder rolled his ankle in the goalless draw last time out and will be subject to a fitness test before the Potteries clash.

McLeish expects Hart to be available despite the shot-stopper suffering a head injury in Saturday's St Andrews clash.

Lee Bowyer also suffered a knock against Carlo Ancelotti's pace-setters but defenders Roger Johnson and Liam Ridgewell appeared to come through unscathed after returning from injury.

Bans

Stoke, meanwhile, will be without midfield duo Glenn Whelan and Salif Diao who both miss Monday's encounter with Birmingham through suspension.

The pair both picked up their fifth bookings of the season in the Manchester City defeat and now serve automatic one-match bans.

In addition, Andy Wilkinson and Robert Huth (knee) picked up knocks, which makes them doubtful for Tony Pulis' side, while Ryan Shawcross is rated as very doubtful for the game with his troublesome groin complaint.

Possible starting XIs

Stoke: Sorensen, Higginbotham, Collins, Faye, Wilkinson, Etherington, Delap, Whitehead, Lawrence, Tuncay, Beattie.

Birmingham: Hart, Ridgewell, R Johnson, Dann, Carr, McFadden, Ferguson, Fahey, Bowyer, Jerome, Benitez.