Watch Stoke vs Man City live streaming as Pep Guardiola will look to continue his 100% start to his time in charge of Manchester City when they take on Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium in Saturday’s lunchtime Premier League kickoff.
The hosts opened their campaign with a draw against newly-promoted Middlesbrough, and will be hopeful of springing a surprise this weekend to claim their first win of the season.
When the fixture lists were released, Stoke will have targeted their opening match of the campaign as a good chance to get some early points on the board. It certainly looked like their best opportunity to do so in the first few weeks, with matches against the likes of Everton and Tottenham Hotspur following this weekend’s clash with title favourites Man City.
As it was, though, the Potters were forced to settle for a pointagainst the newly-promoted Middlesbrough, with Xherdan Shaqiri’s 67th-minute strike cancelling out Alvaro Negredo’s debut opener.
Stoke may need further reinforcements before the August 31 deadline if they are to keep up their impressive recent record in the top flight.In Hughes, though, they have a manager who has so far delivered on his promise to evolve the team, and he will welcome one of his former clubs to the Britannia knowing that Guardiola has not come up against a similar test too often in his trophy-laden managerial career.
Upon his arrival in England, Guardiola declared that his motivation for leaving Bayern Munich was the desire to test himself in another league and against another style of football.While Stoke are no longer quite the long-ball bruisers they once were, the fixture list has certainly given Guardiola what he wanted early on with opening matches against Sunderland and the Potters.
Things were not exactly straightforward in their curtain-raiser last weekend, despite Sergio Aguero giving them a lead from the penalty spot after just four minutes.City utterly dominated possession throughout, as expected, but clear chances were few and far between and Sunderland looked as though they might nick a point when Jermain Defoe levelled things up, only for the hosts to be rescued by an own goal three minutes from time.
Victory at home to the Black Cats via a penalty and an own goal is not exactly the swashbuckling start to Guardiola’s reign that many would have expected, but it is still early days in the Spaniard’s revolution and the players are sure to improve as they increase their understanding of the manager’s philosophy.
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