Nottingham Forest will look to go top of the Championship tables for a brief time at least on Friday night, when they take on Stoke City at the Bet365 Stadium.

A win for Sabri Lamouchi's side over the struggling Potters would see Forest climb to the summit of the second tier, ahead of the rest of the weekend's fixtures.

Both these sides saw their Carabao Cup campaigns ended in midweek, with Forest going down 5-0 to Arsenal at The Emirates Stadium, while Stoke were stunned on penalties by League Two side Crawley Town.

So how could those results impact on Lamouchi's selection for Friday night?

Here, we've taken a look at the starting XI that we expect the Forest boss to select against Stoke.

Having employed a 4-2-3-1 formation in recent games, we imagine that will be the approach taken by Lamouchi again at Stoke.

In goal, Brice Samba ought to return for League action, having dropped out to be replaced by Manchester City loanee Aro Muric for the trip to the Emirates in midweek.

Ahead of him, Yuri Ribeiro is enjoying a run of starts for the first time this season so could feature in the left-back role he performed in the win over Barnsley last weekend, while Matty Cash should remain at right-back in the continued absence of Carl Jenkinson through injury.

The centre of defence should see Joe Worrall and Michael Dawson reunited to continue their consistent presence in the league so far this season, after the pair were handed a break for the Arsenal game.

It should be a similar story in the centre of midfield, where the increasingly influential duo of Samba Sow and Ben Watson should also return after missing the clash at The Emirates on Tuesday, in order to provide Forest with an extra sense of dominance in the centre of the park.

In front of them, the ability to make things happen for Forest that both Joao Carvalho and Joe Lolley possess means that they could be called upon again despite already featuring twice this week, while Sammy Ameobi should have the fresh legs required to support the pair, given he has only been used from the bench up until now in those last two games.

With Wolves loanee Rafa Mir still set to miss out through injury, it will be Lewis Grabban who you imagine will lead the line for Forest once more, after he was rested at Arsenal in midweek - with Albert Adomah having taken on that role at the Emirates - meaning Grabban should be fit and ready to take on a Stoke backline you feel won't exactly be high on confidence at the minute.