Preview: Stoke City vs. Millwall - prediction, team news, lineups

Millwall make the trip to the bet365 Stadium to face Stoke City on Saturday afternoon looking to extend their unbeaten Championship streak to nine matches.

At a time when the Lions sit just two points adrift of the playoffs, Stoke are down in 16th position with manager Michael O'Neill under pressure to keep his job at the Potters.

Match preview

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For a long time during his reign, O'Neill has looked to be the perfect fit for Stoke, the Northern Irishman being provided with the patience required to put everything in place to deliver promotion to the Premier League.

However, despite possessing a talented group of players and being given the licence to shake up his squad in January, Stoke have nose-dived out of the promotion race.

Since the turn of the year, 11 points have been collected from 14 games, the fact that only Reading and Peterborough United possess worse returns highlighting how badly Stoke have been performing.

Their current Championship winless streak stands at eight matches, and Stoke have let slip a lead in five of those games, the latest occurrence at Cardiff City earlier this week.

Although O'Neill can take some positives from his team not conceding more than twice in any of their last 11 outings, he knows that only a miraculous upturn in results will keep him in the Potters dugout.

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In sharp contrast, there was a time earlier in the season where Gary Rowett's Millwall squad appeared to be heading nowhere given a constant standing of mid-table.

That has now changed and as the form team in the division since February 12, the Lions will have total belief that they can now gatecrash the playoff spots.

Millwall ended Huddersfield Town's lengthy Championship unbeaten streak on Wednesday, a double from Benik Afobe earning a 2-0 victory at The Den.

While the East Londoners have only netted 10 times in eight matches, they have conceded just twice, their current run of clean sheets standing at five games.

Only Fulham and Bournemouth possess better defensive records this season, and Rowett will recognise that none of their rivals will fancy playing them in the playoffs should they participate in the end-of-season shootout.

Team News

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Having changed tactics and personnel for the game at Cardiff, O'Neill must decide whether to persevere with at least one of the two for this contest.

A quick turnaround is more likely to lead to squad rotation, Mario Vrancic and Josh Maja both alternatives in midfield and attack respectively.

Tommy Smith is pushing for a return at right-back after a spell on the sidelines, but the defender may be the only player to be removed from the list of sidelined players.

Barring any injury issues, Rowett will see no reason to make changes to the team which started the meeting with Huddersfield.

Sheyi Ojo has recently made a welcome return to the substitutes' bench after two months out, and Tom Bradshaw is also pushing to be named among the replacements.

Stoke City possible starting lineup:
Bonham; Wilmot, Chester, Harwood-Bellis, Fox; Baker, Allen, Vrancic; Brown, Maja, Tymon

Millwall possible starting lineup:
Bialkowski; Ballard, Cooper, Wallace; McNamara, Mitchell, Saville, Malone; Wallace, Bennett; Afobe

We say: Stoke City 1-2 Millwall

With O'Neill potentially being at the point of no return, he will surely instruct his side to attack their opponents on Saturday. Nevertheless, that will not necessarily trouble a well-drilled Millwall side, and we are backing the visitors to fight their way to a narrow win.

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