Stoke vs Cardiff prediction: ENGLAND: Championship betting tips on match 2022-12-09 15:00.
Stoke City went into the World Cup break having conceded the joint-second most opening goals of any Championship club with 12 (D2, L10), so new manager Alex Neil may have been thinking the worst when his side went in at half-time 1-0 down in their friendly against Premier League club Nottingham Forest earlier this month. They ended up fighting back to win 2-1 in that match, prompting assistant manager Martin Canning to state to the press that the result was “a nice way to end this couple of weeks of work”.
Having kept the relegation zone at bay with a handy 2-0 win at home to Luton Town prior to the intermission, Stoke are now primed to claim consecutive Championship home wins for the first time this season against another club, Cardiff City, that has struggled to impose their authority and sits just one point below them. Doing so would not only end Stoke’s four-game winless run against Cardiff (D2, L2) but would illustrate that their squad – in which just three players have played at least 75% of all minutes this league season – is finally gelling.
Cardiff should also be better off for having established some stability of their own by backing manager Mark Hudson with a full season contract despite losing five of their seven Championship matches (W2) prior to the World Cup break. Hudson asserted his new-found authority by demanding that Cardiff, the Championship’s lowest-scoring club with an average of 0.81 goals per game, find a way to be more “ruthless and cut-throat” in front of goal.
Hudson’s frustrations are well justified as Cardiff lament the league’s worst shooting accuracy prior to the break with just one in four shots on average finding the target. His side have shown signs of improvement defensively, however, keeping the margin to just one goal in their last three defeats, whilst also conceding a combined total of just two first-half goals across their last five league matches.
Players to watch: Jacob Brown opened the scoring at home to Cardiff last season (D 3-3) and is one of six Stoke players to have scored in a Championship home victory. Cardiff’s last Championship away outing saw Mark Harris become the first player from his side to score in two league away victories.
Hot stat: Just five of the last 16 Championship matches involving either club produced at least three total goals.