English Premier League Match Day 12 Preview: Stoke And Birmingham Look To Solidify Safety

At the beginning of the season, conventional wisdom was that both Stoke and Birmingham were set for mid-table mediocrity. Nothing special, but nowhere near the drop. It’s still early days in the English Premier League, but Birmingham currently sits in 15th place while Stoke sits 17th. It’s not exactly a relegation six pointer, but both teams need to find some wins soon to avoid getting into battles like that in the second half of the season.

Tony Pulis has finally picked Tuncay to start the last two matches, but at the expense of Jermaine Pennant, not Jonathan Walters. The new signing from Ipswich has shifted from striker to right midfield to accommodate Tuncay coming into the lineup, but this personnel grouping has been highly ineffective for Stoke. Either Walters or Tuncay is probably going to sit in favor of Pennant, because the current setup simply isn’t working.

Predicting Birmingham’s squad is a little bit less straight-forward, since manager Alex McLeish has been willing to use both 4-4-2 and 4-5-1 base formations, both with varying degrees of success. Birmingham have a couple of streaky forwards in Cameron Jerome and Nikola Zigic, as well as a lot of new signings, like Zigic. McLeish might not know what his best XI is yet, and he really needs to find out soon. McLeish seems to like going to the 4-4-2 against opponents he wants to attack and 4-5-1 when he wants to play a conservative style. It’s unclear which tactic he’ll find to be more suitable at the Brittania, but his team looked exposed defensively playing 4-4-2 at the weekend against lowly West Ham.

Projected Lineup, Stoke City: Begovic - Collins, Faye, Shawcross, Huth - Etherington, Wilson, Whitehead, Pennant - Tuncay, Jones

Projected Lineup, Birmingham City: Foster - Ridgewell, Dann, Johnson, Carr - Hleb, Fahey, Ferguson, Larsson - Zigic, Jerome

Key Matchup: Nikola Zigic’s partner in attack versus the Stoke defense. Zigic has been on and off this year, putting in some very good and some very shocking performances. Even when he’s playing poorly, though, he’s still 6’8” and still a danger to win aerial challenges and set up some opportunities for his teammates. Whether we see Cameron Jerome, Garry O’Connor, Matt Derbyshire, Kevin Phillips, or an attacking midfielder playing off of him, Stoke’s defense is going to have to stop those players from getting on the end of balls after Zigic wins aerial challenges. It’s not really easy to gameplan for 6’8”, but it’s possible to stop the guy next to him from getting the ball in dangerous positions.

Battle Within The Battle: Nikola Zigic versus himself. If Birmingham are playing route one football and Zigic is playing poorly, suddenly his partner becomes a little bit irrelevant. With Zigic’s mediocre form and Stoke’s ability to outplay most teams in a straight up route one game, I think McLeish might be much better served playing Derbyshire with Jerome and playing the game more on the ground. It’s not like those two are tiny and can’t hold up to an “English” style of play and match, they’re both about 6’0” and pretty strong. Regardless, Zigic is likely to start, and he’ll need to perform well if he does start and Birmingham plays the way that most of us are accustomed to them playing.

Pick: A route one game with a route one result. Stoke 1-1 Birmingham.