Stoke City to take transfer pursuits into deadline day
Transfer news and opinion as Stoke City look to put the finishing touches to their squad for the rest of the season
Stoke City are expected to take their hunt for more January transfer business into February as negotiations spill into deadline day.
As it stands, there is unlikely to be anyone holding a scarf in front of the Boothen End today. D’Margio Wright-Phillips is hoping to seal a loan move to Germinal Beerschot in Belgium but it will be Thursday when any more activity unravels or otherwise as Stoke try to beat the clock to put any finishing touches to their squad for the rest of the season.
This was always going to be a relatively quiet window compared to the summer, when Stoke were pretty much announcing signings every three days in the run up to the end of August. It is still most likely to look reasonably quiet in terms of numbers by 11pm tomorrow but it’s still frantic behind the scenes with a host of possibilities. Good luck trying to predict now how it will all look by Friday morning.
One more arrival, probably on loan at this stage, would still be no surprise but beyond that would almost certainly depend on exits. There is no big sale on the cards as there was this time last year with Harry Souttar but there will be players and their agents who are evaluating with more urgency how the pecking order might look as Steven Schumacher gets his feet under the table.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out who is more in favour than others. There are players who are starved of starts, there are others who are starved of minutes even from the bench, there are some who are out of contract in the summer. Stoke brought in six players from overseas in the summer and some will have clearly found it easier to settle than others. Loan players’ parent clubs might have their own thoughts about their development.
This is a window when things can develop very quickly at the death – and a lot of clubs seem to be leaving things particularly late this year. All of a sudden, a name in Stoke’s little black book of potential targets can suddenly become unexpectedly available. Bournemouth confirmed the signing of Illya Zabarnyi at 8.33pm 12 months ago and it suddenly became clear there would be no place in their squad for Ben Pearson.
A forward who can score goals would top most supporters’ wish lists this time around and there has been clamour for a left-back and dominant centre-half.
There are a few points to consider.
Stoke currently have 27 senior players on their books that would have to be named in the squad submitted to the EFL if they are to be available for selection in the Championship. Wright-Phillips is counted in that, Liam McCarron wasn’t listed in the first half of the season and Blondy Nna Noukeu was added in emergency. Even so, it leaves little room to manoeuvre. It is one thing carrying six loan players knowing that one will have to miss a match from time to time, which still isn’t ideal, but it is another condemning a player to the stands for four months.
Stoke are in a different world in terms of budget than they were at this stage last year but it is no secret that there is more value in the summer market. Would they be prepared to pay a premium to make a move for that elusive potential 20-goal striker now? It would take some doing even for a prolific front man to catapult the Potters towards the play-offs.
There are young players – perhaps even Junior Tchamadeu and Bae Junho as well as Nathan Lowe, Nikola Jojic, Sol Sidibe and Emre Tezgel – whose opportunities have to be kept in mind.
‘Time to gel’ has probably been the buzz phrase over the last six months. There was a line from Mauricio Pochettino this week to remind Chelsea fans that even Zinedine Zidane “took seven or eight months” to settle in at Real Madrid so they should be patient with Moises Caicedo. Marko Arnautovic was similar at Stoke and he was from a different planet to anyone who might be signed in the Championship. But that’s not to say that all recruits always deserve
patience and sometimes it’s braver but better to cut and run if, for example, there is someone who isn’t meeting standards in training. Oh to be a fly on the wall at Clayton Wood.
