Stoke City welcome Manchester United to the bet365 Stadium this weekend in a bid to take their winning run to three games, which would match their longest winning streak this season.

It will not be easy for Mark Hughes’ side who face a United team fresh off a hard fought 1-1 draw at home to Liverpool.

The Potters could take some positives from that result as Jose Mourinho’s men looked far from their best, with a struggling performance from the £89-million-pound man Paul Pogba being one of the key points from the fixture. With the home side picking up back to back victories in successive seasons against the Red Devils, their confidence will be high as they prepare to entertain the 20-time Premier League Champions.

A win for Stoke would see them leapfrog West Brom and head into eighth, their highest position in the table this season following a winless streak at the start of the campaign.

Previous meetings

The last time the two sides met earlier on in the season it was Joe Allen who rescued a point for his side, ensuing chaos amongst the travelling Potters contingent as they celebrated their first point at Old Trafford in their Premier League stint.

They also had Lee Grant to thank after a string of quality saves tamed the waves of Manchester United attacks.

However, last term saw both sides sweep each other away with relative ease. Stoke’s attacking trio of Marko Arnautovic, Bojan and Xherdan Shaqiri proved too much for United as they were comfortably beaten 2-0 on Boxing Day last season. Louis Van Gaal’s side got their revenge in the return fixture, with a relatively routine 3-0 victory.

99 up for Peter Crouch

The former England striker took his Premier League tally up to 99, scoring the third in a 1-3 victory at Sunderland, which was also his 50th for the Potters. He will be hoping that he can finally reach the magic 100 and join the elite list of Premier League players to do so.

He told stokecityfc.com that he may bring back the robot: “I have had so many people asking me whether it will come back out when I get my 100th goal."

Crouch added, “They are telling me that I have to do it and to be fair, the pressure is taking its toll - maybe it will come out, we will see." The towering forward still enjoys the fact it is remembered: “People still talk about it now but at the time it was just a bit of fun, and all of a sudden 10 years on, people are still talking about it.

He concluded, “I only actually ever did it twice for England and people seemed to enjoy it so I’m sure I’ll dust it off at some stage.”