Stoke City v Manchester United team news & stats

Mark Holmes 24 Dec 2015 11:16 AM

Bojan: Eyes on the Champions League

Manchester United will hope to arrest a run of six games without a win when they travel to Stoke City in the Premier League on Boxing Day.

Team news

Stoke remain without Geoff Cameron, Marc Muniesa, Peter Crouch and Stephen Ireland, who are all working their way back from hamstring injuries, but Mark Hughes has the option of naming an unchanged side.

His biggest decision, however, will be whether or not to stick with the strikerless system that worked so well against Manchester City earlier this month but yielded only one point from games against West Ham and Crystal Palace. Mame Diouf, Jon Walters and Joselu are in contention if Hughes opts to utilise an out-and-out centre-forward.

Manchester United, meanwhile, remain without Bastian Schweinsteiger, who serves the final game of a three-match ban, and Matteo Darmian, who is still recovering from a hamstring injury but could return against Chelsea on December 28.

Jesse Lingard (hamstring), Marcos Rojo (shoulder), Antonio Valencia (foot) and Luke Shaw (leg) are also still sidelined.

Kick-off at the Britannia Stadium is at 12.45pm.

Opta stats

Stoke City have won just one of their 14 Premier League matches against Manchester United (W1 D2 L11) but have lost just one of the last four at home (W1 D2 L1).
The Potters have never kept a clean sheet against Man Utd in the Premier League.
As a manager, Mark Hughes was unbeaten in his first three Premier League games against Man Utd (W2 D1) but has won just one of his 14 meetings with them since (W1 D3 L10).
Stoke have won three and lost three of their seven Premier League games on Boxing Day.
Manchester United have won 18 of their last 19 fixtures played on Boxing Day (W18 L1).
Wayne Rooney has scored on Boxing Day in the last two years (two goals v Newcastle in 2014, one goal v Hull in 2013).
However, Rooney has scored only two goals in 1140 minutes of Premier League action this season and his minutes per goal ratio (one every 570) is more than double that of any of his previous 13 Premier League seasons as a player.
Stoke City have kept a clean sheet in seven of their last 10 Premier League games but have conceded exactly two goals in the other three games in this period.
Manchester United have failed to win any of their last six games in all competitions (L3 D3) – the last time that they went on a run this long within a single season was in their treble-winning campaign of 1998-99 (Dec 1998).
The Red Devils have averaged just 1.29 goals per game in the league this season, their lowest average since 1989-90 (1.21).