Forest v Stoke - Match Thread

Tuesday night sees trhe cleaning lady arrive to ensure the place is spotless, whereas Wednesday night sees the Potters arriving Trent side, for the first time competitively, in thirteen years. We won that game 1-0 in the Championship.

Whilst Stoke went on to the heady heights of mid-table Premiership, Forest proceeded to get relegated, with our biggest success since, being a 3rd place play-off spot...which we of course lost.

Renewed optimism abounds at the City Ground and not just because of the annual early season dreams. We convincly beat Newcastle in our last cup outing 3-1. Stoke beating Huddersfield 2-0 at the same stage at home.

Whether it was a cup hangover, moving Bridcutt out of Midfield, tired from playing a day later, we were poor or simply, Brentford were frankly brilliant. We still lost 2-1.

The International break came at the right time. Since then we're DWW in the league. Stoke DWL, losing at home 2-3.

This is of course, the cup. Anything can happen. 11-10 on penalties a prime example.

I can imagine both teams rotating players. Stoke didn't lose to many over the summer, they've no doubt struggled adapting, but I'm sure they're is a lot of premiership experience, with Crouch likely to feature at some point.

Could we see as many changes as this? Unlikely.

Steele
Darikwa Dawson Figuerido Osborn
Bridcutt Yacob
Appiah Tsachey Goncalves
Murphy

Forest are 9th in the table and Stoke 18th. Based on that alone, it points to a Forest win. We've a big enough squad to manage a cup run and a top team would be great in the next round.

With no idea on who will play and what either teams focus is (league or cup, or both) I'm going for a 2-1 Forest win. Just because we're at home and we're in better form.