Sunderland boss Steve Bruce has cautioned his side against being drawn into a scrap at notoriously physical Stoke City on Saturday.
Bruce said the Black Cats need to play the sort of enterprising football they produced in the first half of their English Premier League game against Chelsea on Tuesday.
Sunderland and Chelsea were tied 2-2 at half-time before goals to John Terry and Nicolas Anelka gave the Blues their third-straight victory.
“We know how difficult a place (Stoke) is to go to and get something; we know what to expect,” Bruce said.
“They’ve got their strengths, we’ve got ours and I always feel it’s important to play to your strengths rather than to the opposition’s.”
“What we’d really like is to make it three away wins in a row. If we play some of our best stuff we’ve got a real chance of getting something.”
“What I do want us to do though is to play our football. Some of the stuff we played against Chelsea in the first half on Tuesday night was fantastic – lesser opposition would have struggled to cope with it.”
“We have to compete but we also have to make sure we don’t get dragged into playing them at their own game.”
“They are a tough, tall, strong, uncompromising side and I think there’s hardly a player in the team who is below six foot tall and in John Carew they’ve got a lad who is six foot five.”
“The Britannia Stadium has earned a reputation over the last few years as a tough place for anyone to go to and I don’t think any side in the Premier League relishes a visit there.”
Bolo Zenden (knee) is in doubt while Fraizer Campbell, David Meyler, Michael Turner (all knee), Lee Cattermole (back) and Danny Welbeck (hamstring) are all out of contention.
Sulley Muntari, signed from Inter Milan in the January transfer window, could be in line to make his debut.