Mark Hughes and Tony Pulis are set to lock horns again following their handshake misdemeanors in Fulham's 2-0 Premier League win at the Britannia Stadium before the turn of the year.
As always, City will turn up as resilient as ever in defence and will battle us all over the park (hopefully with no side-effects mounted upon Moussa Dembele) while, offensively, the addition of ex-Villa target man John Carew is bound to stir up the away side and cause Brede Hangeland and Aaron Hughes no end of problems.
Form wise, we seem well placed to take 3 points, having won 3 of our last 5 games and scoring 12 goals in the process. Ignore the last 5 games though and it doesn't look quite so peachy for the Cottagers, with no wins dating back until late October 2010.
Stoke City have also hit good form of late and have rocketed up to a safe 8th place in the League Standings, with respectable wins over both Bolton and Everton. Fresh from FA Cup success, The Potters should be buoyed with the knowledge that they've only lost 1 of their last 5 games, with that being at Old Trafford.
In the same game at the Cottage last season, the away side came away with the points in a 1-0 victory, while, this season, on the whole, has been slightly more fruitful for Fulham, picking up one win and one defeat; the win surprisingly being on our travels and the defeat being in the League Cup.
Gladly, we have no new injury worries to be concerned about, so, disregarding Briggs, Zamora, Senderos and Mark Schwarzer, Hughes has a full strength line-up to choose from, which will hopefully make it difficult for him. Steve Sidwell is still in line to make his first appearance in a white shirt after completing a full week's training while Andy Johnson will be knocking on Sparky's door after his saving-goal against Wigan last Saturday.
Danny Higginbotham picked up a hamstring strain over the course of the week and will be unlikely to take part for the visitors and Sidibe is still suffering from an achilles problem that will more-than-likely keep him out until late February. New signing John Carew could well lead the line for Stoke, but questions over his match fitness may well lead Tony Pulis to think otherwise.
Score Prediction: Fulham 2 - 1 Stoke
Predicted Fulham Line-Up: Stockdale; Baird, Hangeland, Hughes, Pantsil; Duff, Murphy, Sidwell, Davies; A.Johnson, Dempsey.