Stoke City vs Burnley Prediction: Can Trafford’s clean sheet run continue?

Scott Parker’s Burnley team continue to win games, and continue to keep clean sheets. They secured a 2-0 win over then managerless Coventry City in midweek, which means they have still only conceded six Championship goals this season.

Scott Parker has received a lot of criticism, but he has taken his team within two points of the top of the table as they travel to Stoke on Saturday (15:00). Below you can find Stoke City vs Burnley predictions featuring team news and betting tips.

Team News

Stoke manager Narcis Pelach still has some notable injuries including Ben Pearson, Bosun Lawal and Sam Gallagher. The former Blackburn striker seems unable to shake off his calf issue, so Tom Cannon, on loan from Leicester, will continue to lead the line. 

Lewis Koumas and Andre Vidigial are two potential attacking options for the Potters after they failed to score against Preston North End in midweek, with Andrew Moran a candidate to drop out of the side for one of those two names. Youngster Ashley Phillips partnered Ben Gibson at the back and kept a clean sheet, so I’d expect that duo to remain unchanged for the visit of Burnley.

For the visitors, Josh Brownhill missed the midweek game with a knock and Parker gave an update on his fitness in his pre-match press conference. “Josh is on the grass today, we’ll see where we are tomorrow in terms of making a call on him, he didn’t fully train today,”

“There’s a few players progressing well. Some good signs with a few of the lads – Lyle Foster, Joe Worrall, Hjalmar (Ekdal), Hannes (Delcroix), have been in and around the training group now for some weeks. We might look at getting them some game time with the under-21s to get them up to speed. Pleasing in that sense.” 

That’s a decent summary of where Burnley are at in terms of fitness right now, and it will be interesting to see whether Jeremy Sarmiento keeps his place in the team after scoring on Tuesday night. Luca Koleosho is the prime candidate to replace him if he comes back into the XI. 

Stoke City vs Burnley Odds

Stoke are priced at 21/10 to win this game, while Burnley are available at 13/10. That gives the away side a win probability of 43%, while a draw can be backed at 12/5. Over 2.5 goals is 11/10, BTTS is 5/6 and Tom Cannon is the favourite to score first at 6/1.

Under 2.5 goals @ 4/6

My first selection is a pretty standard one when it comes to Burnley this term. Remarkably, only three of their 17 matches to date have seen over 2.5 goals which gives them the lowest success rate in the league at just 18 per cent. The way Burnley play can be described as dull, but it is remarkably effective. 

They strangle the ball and the quality of their backline makes it very difficult to find the net, meaning a clean sheet is always likely for Parker’s men. Meanwhile, Stoke have hardly set the world alight in terms of goals this term, with only six of their 17 matches seeing over 2.5 goals as well. I’m more than happy to back under 2.5 goals as my first selection here, given the defensive superiority that Burnley have shown this season. 

Burnley to win to nil @ 5/2

Okay, maybe I am starting to come around to the work Parker is doing with Burnley. He has built an incredibly strong defence that features England’s future number one James Trafford in goal, behind France U21 international Maxime Esteve and former Manchester City prospect CJ Egan-Riley. It’s a back line that has so much quality, but the fact they have conceded just six goals is simply remarkable. 

They’ve now won their last three games in a row without conceding, and they are on a run of four consecutive clean sheets. Against Stoke, I can’t see them changing the way they play, while I also don't rate Stoke's attack all that highly, so I feel the most likely outcome is another Burnley win to nil - at a decent price. 

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