, Stoke City and their World Cup star – The real winners

Stoke City and their World Cup star – The real winners

When players depart clubs to head to not only pastures new but a bigger club in a better league it’s normally a blow. Xherdan Shaqiri has left Stoke City for Liverpool and a further career in the Premier League. Stoke were always going to lose him, but there are various reasons why this was a good deal for the club.

Liverpool triggered the release clause in Shaqiri’s contract and got the deal done. The player has been starring for Switzerland in Russia this summer and that has complicated deals for so many clubs. Stoke have already made one very high-profile in the window, Benik Afobe arriving but as we’ve seen with Aston Villa you have to be making money to spend it and Stoke haven’t been brining in much from player sales.

By selling Shaqiri for his clause it means a £13 million deal, probably not what he’s worth in today’s market but it’s a deal that means the wages and fee coming in can help recruit players to help the club back up to the Premier League. If the clause hadn’t been there then this sort of deal would go down to the wire, Liverpool could have bargained and looked elsewhere.

Stoke now have time to replace, they don’t need to panic buy which is often the case when a smaller club has to sell. The player hasn’t acted up and it’d been done in good time and in good spirits. The Stoke City fans understand the player has to move on to stay at his level as do the club. They might not have got value for money but they haven’t had huge complications and cat and mouse.

Shaqiri was the player to really represent the Premier League era for Stoke City. A player signed for a record fee from Inter Milan and one who really turned on the style for Stoke, a club living the dream and not looking out of place.

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