Stoke City goalkeeper Asmir Begovic hopes they can finish the Midlands' top dogs.

Begovic is urging his team-mates to help Stoke City be crowned kings of the Midlands for the first time in the club's 151-year history.

He told The Sentinel: "It would be a huge achievement. The fans love the bragging rights, too. We'll be working hard to make that happen.

"We'll be looking for a good result against Aston Villa for a start and there's seven games after that when anything can change. There will be a lot of twists and turns, I'm sure.

"We want to finish as high as we can. We want to keep progressing and moving forwards. Finishing as the top Midlands club would go a long way to satisfying that.

"We keep looking up rather than down and if we can get a lot of points and play the way we know we are capable of I'm sure we can finish pretty high in the table."