The Potters welcome Liverpool to the Britannia Stadium in the weekends big Premier League game, which is also the Potters first Saturday game of the season.
Stoke finished 13th last season in the Premier League and comfortably beat their opponents at the Brit. 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.
Stoke had a very good home record last season and beat fourteen sides at the Brit, suffering only five defeats and have already beaten Hajduk Split and Thun at home and drawn at the Brit against Chelsea. The Scousers won five times away from home in the league last season but lost eleven times away aswell.
In the 60 matches between these sides at Stoke, the Potters have won 24, 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. Overall Liverpool have won 62 times to the Potters 27 victories.
The referee is Mark Clattenburg. This is only his second game of the season after he opened his campaign reffing Carlisle v MK Dons last weekend. He reffed Stoke three times last season. a 3-2 home win over Birmingham, 0-0 away draw with Blackpool and 2-1 defeat away at Manchester United. He didn't referee Liverpool in each of the last three seasons, the last time he reffed the Reds being a 2-2 home draw against Aston Villa in January 2008.
The Met Office report that there will be light rain showers, temperatures of a warm 19 degrees celsius, good visibility with a 19mph breeze, with gusts of 36mph.
Prediction: City strike early on through Kenwyne Jones before Luis Suarez equalises. Peter Crouch steps off the bench to net a late winner for the Potters