Stoke pre-match pack

Here are all the important pre-match stats and facts ahead of Saturday's trip to Stoke City.

Head to Head: (League only)

At Stoke: Liverpool 12 wins, Stoke 23 wins, 19 draws.

Overall: Liverpool  54 wins, Stoke 26 wins, 29 draws.

Earlier this season Liverpool won 4-0 at Anfield. Fernando Torres and Glen Johnson (with his first for the club) scored before half-time with Dirk Kuyt and David Ngog adding further goals. Daniel Ayala made his first start for the Reds.

The teams drew 0-0 here last January (as they had done earlier in the 2008-09 campaign).

The Reds biggest away league win at Stoke came in March 1982 when they won 5-1 with Terry McDermott, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness, Sammy Lee and Ronnie Whelan all scoring. The Reds went on to clinch the title.

That is the only time Liverpool have won a league game at Stoke by two goals or more.

Liverpool have lost only two of their last 16 league visits.

Home and away Liverpool have lost only one of the last 19. That defeat came in April 1984 when they went down 2-0 at the Victoria Ground with former Red Colin Russell scoring one of the goals.

No Liverpool player has scored a league hat-trick at Stoke. However two players have achieved the feat at Anfield. Andy McGuigan became the first to score five goals in a game for the club as the Reds won convincingly 7-0 in 1902 while Roger Hunt netted four in a 6-1 victory on Boxing Day 1963.

Liverpool are three goals short of scoring 350 in league games under Rafa Benitez.

The Reds are looking for a third successive league clean sheet for the first time this season.

Yossi Benayoun (who is currently out injured), Dirk Kuyt, Lucas and Pepe Reina have featured in every league game of this season.

Liverpool have won three of their last four league games.

In the last seven away games in all competitions the Reds have lost just once (at Portsmouth) winning three times while conceding just four goals.

Steven Gerrard has scored the club's first league goal of a calendar year in four of the last nine seasons, but injury will deny him the opportunity this year.

This is Stoke's second season in the top flight after 23 seasons away.

Last season Stoke finished 12^th in the league winning ten of their home games and losing just four. They conceded only 15 times at the Britannia with only Tottenham, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool conceding less.

Stoke's biggest home win over Liverpool came in February 1897 when they won 6-1.

City have scored just 10 goals in their last 16 home league games against Liverpool.

Home and away they have failed to score in each of the last five league meetings with Liverpool - a run stretching back to 1984.

So far in this campaign Stoke have won five of their 10 home games, losing three times at the hands of Chelsea, Manchester United and Birmingham.

They have been short of goals - scoring 18 goals in 20 games. Only Wolves (17) have scored fewer.

14 of Stoke's 18 league goals have been scored at home.

Their leading scorers in the league this season all have two goals - Matthew Etherington, James Beattie, Tuncay and defenders Ryan Shawcross and Abdoulaye Faye. Dave Kitson, currently on loan at Middlesborough, also has two.

Their 3-2 home win over Fulham in their last game was their first league win in seven.

They have not kept a clean sheet in the last seven in all competitions (6 in the league).

Stoke are four points better off than they were last season. Their 21^st game of the campaign was against the Reds (like last season).

They have only ever won two of 15 Premier league games during the months of December and January - both at home.

Matthew Etherington made his Stoke debut against Liverpool at the Britannia in January 2009.

Former Liverpool player Salif Diao was injured in the warm up of this fixture last season and was replaced in the starting line-up by Glenn Whelan.

Goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen has saved three penalties this season.

Current League Positions: 

Liverpool: Pld  20  Won  10  Drawn  3  Lost  7  Goals For  37  Against  25  Points  33  Position: 7^th

Stoke: Pld 20 Won 6 Drawn 6 Lost 8 Goals For 18 Against 25 Points 24 Position: 10^th

Scorers this season: (League in brackets):

Liverpool: Torres 12 (12), Benayoun 7 (5), Gerrard 6 (5), Kuyt 6 (5), Ngog 6 (4), Babel 3 (2), Johnson 2 (2), Insua 1 (0), Mascherano 1 (1), Skrtel 1 (1), own goals 1 (0).

Stoke: Etherington 4 (2), Fuller 3 (1), Kitson 3 (2), Beattie 2 (2), Abdoulaye Faye 2 (2), Shawcross 2 (2), Tuncay 2 (2), Griffin 1 (0), Higginbotham 1 (0), Huth 1 (1), Sidibe 1 (1), Whelan 1 (1), own goals 2 (2).