Swansea City have lost several key players for this season. Goalkeeper Freddie Woodman, center-back Marc Guehi and midfielder Conor Hourihane have all returned to their parent clubs after loan periods with Swansea. Losing these players will surely hurt them. Also Andre Ayew's his contract ended this summer. Today they will probably be without Liam Walsh and Korey Smith and Connor Roberts is injured. Stoke, on the other hand have lost Collins, Etebo, John Obi Mikel, Wimmer, Woods, Afobe and Bruno Martins Indi. However they have also signed good players like Sam Surridge mentioned above, midfielder Mario Vrancic as well as center-backs Ben Leo Ostigard and Ben Willmott. Missing the very effective but still injured forward Tyrese Campbell does hurt but Stoke can succeed without him. Campbell scored six goals and seven assists in sixteen Championship matches last season.

Stoke have started the Championship season better than Swansea beating Reading 3-2 at home in the first round. A very good performance  - they were the better team in this match and the result was justified. In their most recent match they played a 0-0 draw away from home versus Birmingham who are a slightly better team than Swansea. Between these two matches they also defeated Fleetwood in the EFL Cup. Swansea on the other hand lost to Blackburn in the first round 1-2 away from home and in their most recent match the played 0-0 at home versus Sheffield United at home in a balanced match that could have gone either way. Between the two Championship matches they beat Reading 3-0 as some 57% favorites to win in an EFL cup battle and played well. Both teams do have the offensive talent to score but I see Stoke's defense as clearly better than Swansea's and the goal expectancy is not high here.

To sum up, Stoke have over 70% chance to grab at least a point here so Stoke +0.5 goals handicap is the pick for my fans!