There’s just no suppressing Vincent Kompany’s Clarets at the moment. They made an electric start to their potentially tricky match against a hard working Birmingham side and that simply set up a very comfortable home win in which Blues hardly ventured into the Burnley area.

The depth of attackers that Burnley have were on show again in that televised match. Kompany started with his two recruits from the Belgian league, Manuel Benson and Anass Zaroury, supporting Jay Rodriguez but all were replaced during the 90 by great options in Gudmundsson, Nathan Tella and Ashley Barnes. Kompany has been in almost total charge of recruitment for Burnley over the summer, hence the influx from Belgium, but there’s no denying that it has worked out very well so far.

Burnley are still running a bit hot in terms of goal difference to xG, so there are reasons to be cautious with the expectations on them, but I don’t feel that this is the fixture to oppose them.

At this stage of Alex Neil’s reign there is an overwhelming feeling that the Scot is waiting for a window to start turning the squad over. There is no doubt in my mind that Neil is a highly capable Championship manager, but there has been a malaise of recruitment for a while at Stoke and it would appear that Neil can’t quite find the right system and balance to get the most out of the squad.

Liam Delap has been given responsibility to play the main forward role in the side, but continues to flatter to deceive somewhat in that role. Tyrese Campbell shows flashes but has never really got back to the level that got many people so excited before his big injury. When playing against a side that gives you so little when you have possession, you need sharp weapons to explolt that, Stoke appear to be lacking those in my opinion. Burnley have scored in every game bar one this season so Stoke will probably have to score themselves to get anything out of the game.

Burnley’s superior quality and clarity of purpose should be enough to see them to victory.