Michael Skubala wants to dent Stoke City's home form when Bristol City head to the bet365 Stadium

Bristol City boss Michael Skubala is warning his side to be ready for a challenge from “a very physical and big” Stoke City side this weekend.

Skubala brings Bristol City to the bet365 Stadium on Saturday (3pm) hoping to show a response to back-to-back 1-0 defeats at home against Blackburn Rovers and Sheffield United – although he insists the performance was better than the scoreline in the first.

He is looking for more bite as he highlights three of Stoke’s central midfielders to sum up the next task at hand.

“I thought we had a really positive performance against Blackburn at home, creating chances, creating shots,” he said. “We didn’t score, of course, which is frustrating. We want to get back to performances when we’re on the front foot, being aggressive, being good in the duels and we’re trying to take our game plan and our game to the opposition.

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“We know that Stoke have started their season very well. They’ve got some good players in (Ethan) Galbraith and (Djibril) Soumare and (Justin) Devenny, which are great players. But we go into every game thinking we can hurt the opposition and we’ll do exactly the same again. It’ll be a tough game but a game that we're excited to go and have a challenge.

“I think this season we’ve been good away from home and we want to keep that up.”

Stoke are also hoping to get back to winning ways at home after losing 3-2 to title contenders Middlesbrough last time out at HQ. They had won the previous three on their own turf and had a 1-0 win at Derby County last weekend too.

Home ticket sales have been healthy for the first in a home double header, with Preston North End to follow seven days later. Bristol City have currently sold about 1,000 of their 2,500 allocation for the away end.

Skubala said in an interview for the club website: “As always we’ll look how we can hurt the opposition, how we can get our strengths against their weaknesses. I think we’ve got good players who can hurt teams more than we did against Sheffield United.

“There are definitely going to be moments when the games looks like (it did against) Sheffield United. They’re a very physical team, they’re a big team. We need to be better with the ball and see if we can bring the ball down and play our stuff a little bit more.

“There will be times when we need to be fast on the attack and good in moments when we can counter-attack and be more threatening in the final third. How can we hurt teams when we get there a little bit more rather than coming out, playing passes that are a bit more risky in the final third rather than being safe.”