Sobering Stoke City transfer admission made

Stoke City boss Michael O’Neill has warned supporters that the Potters will be operating within a tight transfer budget for the foreseeable future unless they cash in on some of their valuable assets, speaking to Stoke-on-Trent Live.

Their spending spree in the summer of 2018, in a desperate attempt to get back to the Premier League at the first time of asking, failed to pay dividends for the Staffordshire outfit who have suffered the consequences of that since then with their transfer business being limited.

Following a productive transfer window last summer though, with the club offloading those deemed surplus to requirements and being able to reinvest in their squad because of that, they looked set to have a much brighter campaign this term following three seasons of mediocrity.

Despite a strong start to 2021/22 though, they have fallen down the league table since and are currently 16th going into this afternoon’s round of Championship fixtures.

This is a real disappointment considering they made shrewd additions in January to push them on, with Lewis Baker and Phil Jagielka arriving permanently and four loanees coming in to strengthen their first-team squad.

And though they were busy during this winter period, they had to operate within a small budget, offloading numerous first-teamers including Danny Batth, Adam Davies and Sam Surridge on a permanent basis and O’Neill has hinted that won’t be changing anytime soon.

He said: “I knew there wouldn’t be a huge amount of money to spend and any money we did spend we would have to generate out of the squad, which we have done whether it’s through wages or selling players and reinvesting money into the team.

“That will be the process at this club, I would imagine,