Stoke boss Mark Hughes urges Potters to “grasp opportunity”

However, Stoke will have to make do without centre-back Ryan Shawcross following his latest injury setback.

Manager Mark Hughes has no doubts Stoke City will recover from Saturday’s 3-0 Premier League humbling by Leicester City in time to capitalise on Liverpool’s defensive frailties in the second leg of the League Cup semi-finals on Tuesday.

‘Thankfully it’s not a recurrence of his back injury that required surgery, ‘ Hughes said.

Now Hughes has confirmed his captain will be unavailable for a while, saying, “Unfortunately he has some muscle damage and at the moment it looks likely that he’ll be out for three to four weeks”.

Hughes admitted the news was a blow, but said: “I’ve still got good players who can come in and they will be prepared and ready to go”.

The man to replace Shawcross on the half-hour mark was Republic of Ireland defender Marc Wilson who didn’t have the best of days in his first league game since the end of October.

“It was certainly detrimental to our performance on Saturday”.

“It is a big part of what we want to do moving forward”.

He added that Geoff Cameron will also still be missing, but Marko Arnautovic is back from his hamstring injury.

“We are pleased that it isn’t anything more severe of course because when he went down at the weekend you automatically fear the worse”, Hughes went on to add.

Crystal Palace have been given a small boost ahead of their FA Cup fourth round clash with Stoke City on Saturday.