Stoke City last broke near transfer record in 2011
Posted on April 18, 2015
Stoke City last broke near transfer record in 2011 after bringing striker Peter Crouch from Tottenham for around £ 12 million.
Since then, the investment at the club has been steady but nowhere near significant enough to break the dominance of the top six or seven clubs. Mark Hughes has managed to keep the club afloat in the Premier League in a transitional campaign after the departure of Tony Pulis. He has managed to mix the physical style of football from Pulis to his attractive style from the Blackburn days. This has continued to keep the club in the top 10 of the table even with just one win in the last five.
Determined to improve on this performance, Hughes says that he is expecting to spend a significant amount of his transfer budget on new players in the coming summer transfer window. Stoke are expected to provide the former Manchester City and QPR manager with significant funds. In the past, the spending of the former Chelsea striker has been criticised and it remains to be seen if Stoke will allow him to break the club’s transfer record. Crouch and several other older players may be on their way out to make way for the new signings.
“We have ideas that are possible and realistic and will pursue them, but there’s nothing to report at this time. It’s quite tentative discussions at the moment.We are probably the lowest spenders in the Premier League, certainly in the windows I’ve been involved in.We have done some good deals and brought some good players in. But that cannot be the strategy moving forward. At some point we will have to invest significantly in the team.We will try to strengthen in the summer, that’s a given,” said the Stoke City manager.