“I wonder…” – Stoke City fan pundit offers Nick Powell future verdict

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Terrace Talk‘ series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Stoke City midfielder Nick Powell has been with the club since 2019. 

He’s having a good season for The Potters with six goals so far in 18 appearances.

Although he suffered a leg injury earlier in the season, since returning to action he has been in fine form and playing regularly for Michael O’Neill’s side.

With Stoke currently sitting 15th in the Championship and Powell being 27-years-old now, there have started to be questions raised about whether he will be staying put or rather going to try and get an opportunity to play higher up the league.

We spoke to FLW’s Stoke City fan pundit Ben Rowley to ask if he thinks Powell could be departing this summer.

“The noises coming out of Stoke are that he has an option for an extra year on his deal after it supposedly ends in the summer that either Stoke or Nick Powell can trigger. It sounds like they both want to trigger that extension, which is great news.”

However, he pointed out that this may not result in the good news that Stoke fans want.

He said: “That won’t necessarily mean that he won’t leave.

“I wonder whether the contract extension will get triggered anyway. I still think there’s a threat that he may leave at the end of the season for a fee in that case.”

Ben argues that it may be a decision yet to be made based on visions for next season. He said: “It depends on how Stoke finish the season, how optimistic we are for next season and what are plans are for us going forward.

“I do wonder whether we stagnate and we look to be stagnating for a while