The Potters welcome Liverpool to the Britannia Stadium in another big game, with a place in the quarter finals of the Carling Cup up for grabs.
Stoke finished 13th last season in the Premier League and comfortably beat their opponents at the Brit, whilst getting a 1-0 win against Liverpool earlier this season. The visitors finished 6th in the table but with Kenny Dalglish back in charge look a different prospect than the one that struggled for the first half of last season and with no european football have played a ful strength side in this competition.
Stoke had a very good home record last season and beat fourteen sides at the Brit, suffering only five defeats and have already beaten seven sides and drew with two in nine home games this season, including five wins out of five in cups. City have also lost only once in 21 times at home in 2011. The Scousers won five times away from home in the league last season but lost eleven times away aswell but have beaten two lower league sides away to get this far in the competition.
In the 61 matches between these sides at Stoke, the Potters have won 25, the visitors 14 and twenty two have been drawn. Last season when the pair clashed at the Britannia Stadium the Potters ended a 25 year wait for a victory over Liverpool and followed that up with a league win earlier this season. Overall Liverpool have won 62 times to the Potters 28 victories.
The referee is Peter Walton. He has reffed Stoke once this season. the 1-1 home draw with Manchester United. He refereed Liverpool for the first time this campaign in Saturdays 1-1 draw with Norwich at Anfield.
The Met Office report that it will be partly cloudy, temperatures of a chilly 7 degrees celsius, good visibility with a 8mph breeze.
Prediction: The Potters attack from the start and open up a two goal lead through Kenwyne Jones and Cameron Jerome. Gerrard pulls one back after the break before sub Walters nets a third late on to confirm the Potters passage