Stoke City’s game is either win or lose, and the home crowd will be raucous because

News and opinion as Stoke City prepare for huge home match against Middlesbrough in the Championship

There have only been seven seasons since the introduction of three points for a win that Stoke City have gone into the 35th match with 35 points or fewer.

We looked at the same stat last week and there were 10 seasons which had 35 points going into the 34th match but the classes of 1984, 2013 and 2020 pulled off big wins at this exact stage on their way to finishing on the right side of the dotted line.

So the sickly seven remain: last day escapes in 1982 and 2003, relegations in 1985, 1990, 1998 and 2018 and this one which hangs firmly in the balance. Nothing is written in the script yet, no matter how dark the mood has been at times and how infuriating it has been to get to this position.

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It is do or die. Twelve crucial matches; the kind of run-in that can make heroes or live on in night terrors, the kind of matches when split-second moments can define careers and how players go down in history books.

Stoke have fallen into the third division before and eventually come through intact but no one should underestimate how devastating it would be to be relegated this time around, with job losses and painful recriminations.

Clubs can get sucked into the horrible spin of League One when even an incredibly strong season and picking up 90 points might not be enough to win promotion. Defeats are even more stomach churning, bad signings are even more hopeless and you can be stuck down there for years.