Wenger - Stoke have improved technically

Arsene Wenger says that Stoke City have become a more technical side under Mark Hughes.

The Potters were renowned for their physical style under Tony Pulis and have caused Arsenal problems in the past with their aggressive approach.

However, since his arrival, Hughes has transformed Stoke into more of a passing side by bringing in Bojan, Ibrahim Affelay and Xherdan Shaqiri, and Wenger believes Saturday’s fixture will be a lot more technical than previous meetings between the teams.

“They are team with a good culture of the Premier League, they know how to behave and they have experience,” the Arsenal manager said. “They have been here a long time in the Premier League and they have improved their technical quality.

“They have Afellay, Bojan, Shaqiri, Diouf up front and Charlie Adam in midfield. They have a lot of technical players that can give you problems.

“What we want is to focus on our own performance as we want to take off at home now. We had two good away games with positive results in difficult places and we know at home we can be efficient against anybody.”

Arsenal’s last five meetings with Stoke have seen 18 yellow cards produced, but Wenger denies there is any 'bad blood' between the sides.

“They have always had good teams and overall when we go to Stoke they are always specially motivated against us,” he said. “There is a little bit of history because of what happened and overall it was always very difficult for us.

“For me there was never bad blood, it was just a game that was always very difficult for us to play. But I always focus on playing football and trying to get my team to play as well as we can."