Stoke City’s big summer of change has gotten underway, with the club releasing seven first-team players.
Among those seven are some long-standing first-team names in Nick Powell, Sam Clucas, and Morgan Fox as well as others.
It’s widely-known that Stoke City are planning some major changes to their playing staff this summer and Alex Neil has previously suggested that he wanted to make his loan players permanent ones in the summer – and that idea might have just become more feasible.
Stoke City have two players on loan from Wolves in Matija Sarkic and Ki-Jana Hoever. Sarkic looked like a great signing at first but quickly picked up a season-ending injury, whilst Hoever was one of Stoke’s best players after January.
A recent report from Sky Sports has revealed that Wolves want to sign Coventry City striker Viktor Gyokeres but that the club would need to offload some players before they can think about signing any big-name players in the summer.
That could mean that periphery players like Sarkic and Hoever could be up for sale. But they still wouldn’t come cheap – Sarkic may be a more realistic signing but Wolves paid £13.5million for Hoever in 2020, so they’d surely want to recoup some of that fee if they sold him.
Stoke’s shopping list…
A new goalkeeper has been something that Stoke City have needed for a number of transfer windows now, and with Sarkic seemingly down the pecking order at Wolves, he certainly seems like a realistic potential signing.
And full-backs may also be high on Neil’s summer wishlist. Dujon Sterling is set to return to his parent club Chelsea and with Fox leaving the club, someone with Hoever’s versatility would be really useful in defence.
But Hoever would be a very ambitious signing for Stoke City and after his impressive spell on loan at Stoke this season, he could well have a place in the Wolves first-team ahead of next season.
Either way, the summer ahead looks to hold a lot of promise for the Potters.
