Stoke vs Luton prediction: ENGLAND: Championship betting tips on match 2022-11-07 19:45.
Stoke welcome Luton in a tale of two clubs experiencing contrasting fortunes this Championship campaign. The Potters’ 2-1 defeat to Birmingham City last weekend saw them drop to 19th place, just two points above the drop zone, and Stoke boss Alex Neil admitted that his side "made fundamental errors" with the English coach having now won just four of his 13 league matches in charge (D3, L6).
Confidence isn’t high at the Bet365 Stadium, as only Wigan (one) have picked up fewer home wins than the Potters’ two this Championship campaign, whilst they haven’t kept a shutout on their own turf since their 2-0 win over Blackpool at the start of the season. That defensive fragility will be a worry as despite holding a decent H2H home record against Luton, losing just two of their last eight such games (W4, D2), they did lose 2-1 here to the Hatters in February.
Luton are flying high after beating Blackpool 1-0 last time out to end a three-match winless streak (D2, L1) and move within two points of the play-off places. Manager Nathan Jones was jubilant post-match, describing the victory as "the perfect away day’’ and there’s plenty of reason to cheer considering the Hatters have taken their best-ever points tally at this stage of a Championship campaign.
They’ll arrive here with a sizable injury list however, which includes defender Dan Potts who was taken off in the first-half of their triumph over the Tangerines, though Jones recently spoke of how his side have dealt with "masses of adversity". He’ll be expecting his troops to still travel full of confidence then, especially as they’ve lost just once across their last seven away trips (W5, D1) whilst keeping an impressive five clean sheets across that run.
Key battle: Stoke will look to Ben Wilmot as the defender has shown his goal threat with three Championship strikes this season and has never been on the losing side (W2, D1) against Luton’s Luke Berry, who marked his first Championship start since March with a winning goal last time out.
Hot stat: Luton have conceded the joint-fewest (eight) Championship away goals ahead of this round.