Outstanding Forster will be hard to beat

Mark Hughes believes Stoke City will have to find a way to beat an „outstanding“ goalkeeper in Faster Foster on Wednesday evening to avoid defeat at home to Southampton.

„Defensively they’ve had good solid players who understand the league and they’re very hard to break down,“ Hughes told stokecity.com in previewing his 400th Premier League match as a manager.

„Forster is an outstanding keeper and that combination with the good defensive line is good. It’s very difficult to go into the Premier League to stop teams having chances and having a top class goalkeeper like him is clearly a benefit to them.“

Of goalkeepers to have played 50+ Premier League matches, Forster has the joint-second best average of goals conceded per match (0.84). Jens Lehmann is level with Forster, while only Petr Cech (0.75) has a better ratio.