EPL: Reds, Potters light up Anfield

Liverpool vs. Stoke City
Venue: Anfield Stadium
Kick off: 4pm

Liverpool go into Sunday’s match at Anfield behind their opponents Stoke City in the Premier League table but with two games in hand on the Potters.
The Reds know that victory will see them move up to at least eighth.
Still adrift of the European spots then, but Liverpool are doing well in this season’s Europa League having held tournament favourites, Borussia Dortmund, to a 1-1 draw in the opening leg of their quarter-final on Thursday night.
Liverpool and Merseyside neighbours, Everton, are the two teams still with eight games of the season to play and winning their game in hand on Manchester City would move them to within six points of the top four.
A point was regarded a solid outcome against second-placed Spurs, but Liverpool have now dropped a league-high 17 points from winning positions and 13 of those have come since Jurgen Klopp took charge.
The results at home do not make for good reading either.
Although Liverpool have suffered just one defeat in their last eight Premier League games at Anfield, they have drawn more than they have won in that time and of Klopp’s 10 league games at home, the Reds have won just three.
The Potters enter this match having lost just one of their last seven matches, all in the top flight, but they would have been disappointed to not pick up three points on matchday 32.
Goals from Ibrahim Afellay and Bojan Krkic had Mark Hughes’s side two up at home to Swansea, who fought back in the final quarter of the contest to take a point back to South Wales.
Afellay’s goal, on his 30th birthday, came in the 13th minute and Stoke have now netted a joint league-high eight goals in the first 15 minutes of their games this season, which equates to an outright high 22 per cent of their total goal haul.
Looking ahead of today, the Potters have only won four of 14 matches against fellow top-half sides and Hughes is yet to win a league match at Anfield in nine previous attempts.
However, Stoke are now unbeaten in three on the road after losing each of their three away league games before that.

Liverpool possible starting lineup: Mignolet, Flanagan, Lovren, Sakho, Clyne, Allen, Milner, Lallana, Firmino, Coutinho, Sturridge.
Stoke possible starting lineup: Haugaard, Bardsley, Cameron, Wollscheid, Pieters, Adam, Imbula, Afellay, Bojan, Shaqiri, Joselu.