Stoke City perhaps landed one of the biggest shocks of the summer transfer window when they confirmed the signing of former Barcelona player Bojan.
The forward was once labelled “the next Messi” and many football fans were shocked that the Spaniard had chose to test his mettle “on a cold Wednesday night in Stoke.”
Even though the signing of Bojan was the one that dominated Stoke’s window, there were other signings that Stoke made that have now become quite important.
Phil Bardsley joined Stoke on a free transfer in what was thought to be for injury cover, and he has already been called into play after USA international Geoff Cameron required surgery for a hernia problem after he came back late from the World Cup.
Bardsley seems to have made that slot his home and has already put in a man of the match performance in the game against Aston Villa. Another shock buy was that of Victor Moses from Chelsea, he was never a player that would have been linked with Stoke but his debut in the Carling Cup against Portsmouth showed fans what he was capable of before he played a main role in Stoke’s historic win at Manchester City last Saturday.
Mame Diouf is a name that needs to be mentioned if you’re going to talk about the Manchester City game for his superb individual goal, since then he has already become something of a fan favourite and now Mark Hughes has the headache of choosing between Peter Crouch, Jon Walters, Marko Arnautovic, Bojan and Diouf up front.
With all them listed the only missing guy is transfer deadline day capture, Oussama Assaidi, the Liverpool player joined Stoke in the eleventh hour when it became obvious that Peter Odemwingie’s knee injury would require surgery and the striker would be out for the best part of the season. Assaidi again joined Stoke on loan after spending a lot of last season on the treatment table, but he will mostly be remembered for his fantastic last minute goal against Chelsea as Stoke recorded another famous victory in the 2013/14 season.
Steve Sidwell and Dionatan Teixeira make up Stoke’s summer signings with Sidwell already making his debut for Stoke and having a fantastic game, which gives fans a lot of hope for the future. Fans are still yet to see Teixeira run out onto the turf at the Britannia Stadium but of the signing Stoke have made, they have only spent very little with many of the players coming in on loan and Bojan being the only signing to cost over £2 million.
Regardless of what Stoke fans think of their team’s yo-yo start to the season after a loss at home to Aston Villa, a draw away to Hull and a confidence boosting win at the reigning champions of Manchester City, the future can only look bright for the team from the Potteries and with Mark Hughes at the helm and Arnautovic already talking about his hopes to play Champions League football, the sky truly is the limit for Stoke this season.
