Stoke City midfielder Glenn Whelan is proud of his grounding at Manchester City.

Whelan eventually left City for Sheffield Wednesday, but remains grateful for his time at the Sky Blues.

"For me it is, it's where I started out," said the 33-year-old Irishman.

"They give me the grounding to where I am today -I spent five-and-a-half years there and loved every minute of it.

"It's always nice to go back, but better if we can go and get a result on Wednesday, especially after the disappointing result earlier in the season.

"The game didn't merit the 4-1 scoreline - they scored two late goals when we were right in the game.

"4-1 was a bit of a hammering, so we'll go there and put in a performance and hopefully get the right result, then we can forget about the home result."