Stoke City v Hull City Betting Tips

If you had said at the start of the season that one of these sides would be 12th and the other one 20th in the Premier League then many would have agreed. However, most people would’ve assumed it would be the the way around with Stoke in 12th and Hull languishing at the bottom, but, it is of course the other way around.

Despite splashing the cash on a couple of players this summer – including wages for expensive loan signings such as Manchester City’s Wilfried Bony and Porto’s Bruno Martins Indi – Stoke find themselves rooted to the bottom of the Premier League without a win to their name and a shocking 14 goals conceded in just five matches.

Defence is certainly the problem for the Potters and they have conceded four goals three times this season, including in both of their last two fixtures. However, there have also been problems on the sidelines with Mark Hughes being fined £8,000 for misconduct during his side’s defeat at home to Tottenham Hotspur.

With Stoke now a well-established Premier League outfit, you would expect them to have real ambitions for the League Cup in order to try and claim a trophy for the first time since their Football League Trophy victory in 2000. They showed this last season as they reached the semi-final of the League Cup, however, with things going pear-shaped so early on this season, I think Stoke may sacrifice the cup in order to focus on getting out of trouble before it is too late. A crying shame for fans who are set to miss another day out at Wembley.

Mark Hughes’ former Manchester United teammate Mike Phelan has been fantastic in his caretaker manager role at Hull City. So much so that he won the Premier League’s August Manager of the Month award and was subsequently offered the manager’s job full time at the KCOM Stadium. Although the deal has yet to be fully ratified and has taken unforgivably long to sort, we can expect that to go through in the next couple of days.

Unfortunately for Hull, they have dropped in the form table a bit in the last couple of weeks. However, they actually managed to score a last minute equaliser at Burnley through a Robert Snodgrass free-kick whilst big losses to Arsenal can happen and are forgivable.

Despite the fact the Tigers have a paper-thin squad, we can expect them to make several changes to the line-up for the League Cup match at Stoke City on Wednesday. New signings Ryan Mason, Will Keane and Dieumerci Mbokani along with several others will likely play, whilst 17-year-old defender Josh Tymon, who put a good performance in the FA Cup match against Arsenal as a 16-year-old last season, should also get an opportunity.

With both sides likely to weaken their team and Stoke having the better ‘reserve’ team on paper along with their home advantage, the Potters have been made the favourites. The pressure is really on Stoke to come out of their poor run of form and I am not sure how they will handle that against a Hull City side who are high on confidence.

With Hull’s squad so small then all of the players will feel they have a chance to impress the manager into giving them a place in the Premier League line-up. The camaraderie with such a small squad like the Tigers must be brilliant and I think this positivity will see them through against a languishing Stoke City side.

Additionally the beauty of League Cup betting is you can bet on ‘To Qualify‘. With this in mind I would certainly advise Hull City to simply qualify at 13/8.

To see all of tonight’s EFL Cup tips click here.