Stoke v West Brom: Baggies visit no tonic for out-of-sorts hosts

Despite Stoke’s dismal form of late, their traditional strength at home sees them installed as 11/8 favourites to beat West Brom at the Britannia Stadium.

But that price should be approached with great caution, not only due to the fact that the hosts have lost their last three matches, and four of their last five.

Their 2/1 visitors, by contrast, have won three of their last four games, with the sole defeat in this run an unlucky loss away to Chelsea, for which they were without top scorer Romelu Lukaku.

The powerful forward will line up at the Britannia however, and looks a very tempting 11/2 shot to open the scoring.

Lukaku has four goals in his past three appearances, two of which finished 2-1 in Albion’s favour, and the possibility of the Belgian breaking the deadlock with the same final result is attributed a 40/1 price.

Stoke lost this fixture 2-1 last season, and their last match by the same scoreline, but it should be noted that the other three defeats in their past four games ended 1-0.

Punters can have 8/1 regarding a 1-0 away triumph here, whilst the Baggies may prove a profitable bet to win a game that involves under 2.5 goals at 5/1.

Those who do feel City’s dismal league run is about to end can take 9/4 odds about a stalemate meanwhile, but if a draw is to ensue, it looks likely that a low-scoring affair will be in prospect.

Indeed, only three Premier League grounds have witnessed the net bulge less times than the Britannia this term, so the 11/4 about a stalemate with less than 2.5 goals occurring looks better value.

Also, punters could study total goals markets in order to cover their bases, regardless of the match result.

4/7 is the price that the hosts score 0-1 goals in the clash, whilst it is 2/5 that Albion register the same amount of times, with both appearing worthy of consideration.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.